The Air of Finality
by BonnieD
Summary: The Cohens and Summer help Ryan deal with some very bad news. Set in my usual SummerRyan AU. (Prequels not strictly necessary to read this story.)
1. Friday

"The Air of Finality" – chapter 1  
  
Set, as always, in my AU Ryan/Summer world. Prequels include: Summer Time, Summer in Chino, Seth Gets Lucky and The Words.  
  
The Cohens and Summer try to help Ryan deal with some very bad news.  
  
Thanks to storymom and Walter for answering questions and supplying useful information and generally holding my hand through the self-doubt.

* * *

Friday evening.  
  
Seth was laying on the couch commenting non-stop on the movie they were watching, while Ryan and Summer sat on the floor; Ryan leaned against the couch with Summer wedged between his sprawled legs, resting the back of her head against his chest. His arms were wrapped around her and he was feeding them both bites of ice cream from the bowl he held.  
  
"Okay, this is the part I don't get," Seth interrupted the dialogue to make yet another point about the illogic of time travel. "We're supposed to assume that different things happened during his blackouts the first time through, right? So why was the kid holding a knife in the original timeline?"  
  
"There is no original timeline. He's stuck in a repeating loop," Summer answered before accepting the spoonful of Chunky Monkey that Ryan held up to her mouth.  
  
"But that doesn't make sense! How could the future be changed then?" he protested, squirming on the couch and thumping his pillow into a more comfortable shape.  
  
"That's why there's no real time travel, Seth. It doesn't make any sense," Ryan retorted. He returned the spoon to the bowl and dipped up some ice cream for himself, leaning slightly over Summer's shoulder to take a bite.  
  
"Shh. We're missing it," Summer interrupted impatiently. "God, Ashton looks like a werewolf in this movie. Someone groom him, please!"  
  
She rested her hand on Ryan's thigh and, with a surreptitious glance at Seth to make sure his eyes were glued to the TV screen, began to rub it lightly. She smiled as she felt Ryan Junior spring instantly to life against her rear. Ryan shifted a little, moved his hand down to cover hers and gently placed her hand back in her lap.  
  
Summer pouted a little. If they were out in the pool house, he would have responded by kissing her neck and grabbing her boobs. If they were out in the pool house, there would be ice cream many other places besides just their mouths. If they were out in the pool house, they probably wouldn't ever find out how Ashton Kucher solved his time travel problems.  
  
Then Ryan pressed his lips near her ear and whispered, "Later," gave her a little peck on the cheek, and Summer cheered right up.  
  
The house phone rang and she was vaguely aware of Kirsten walking through the room on her way to answer it. On-screen Ashton's future had gone from bad to very, very bad and Summer was getting sucked into the movie.  
  
Several minutes slipped by and even Seth managed to be quiet and let the plot unwind. Summer barely noticed when Kirsten, phone in hand, passed by on her way to another part of the house.  
  
Ten minutes later, as the soundtrack built to a deafening crescendo and the story reached its final crisis and Summer was tucked in the warm circle of Ryan's arms with the melting ice cream set aside and forgotten on the floor next to them, Sandy walked into the room. He crossed to Ryan and touched him on the shoulder.  
  
"Can we talk to you for a second?" he asked quietly.  
  
Summer's heart leaped to her throat as she looked up at Mr. Cohen's grim face. She felt Ryan's arms loosen and release her as he said, "Sure."  
  
She moved away so that he could scramble to his feet and follow Sandy from the room. Ryan didn't glance back at her, but his stiff posture let her know how nervous he was. Summer wished she could jump up and follow. She hated waiting to find out things and there was an extremely bad vibe coming from Sandy.  
  
She turned to ask Seth what he thought, but he was still watching the movie, totally oblivious.  
  
Minutes ticked by and Summer's tension grew. Something awful had happened and her gut instinct told her it concerned Dawn. After they had found her, drug addicted and destitute in Chino, Summer had been expecting a call like this.  
  
Or maybe she was being overly melodramatic and completely misreading the situation. Maybe it was the school or Ryan's probation officer – yeah, at 9:00 on a Friday evening? Or perhaps something was wrong with someone else, Marissa for example. Although Marissa was still in the care of the rehab facility and should be safe, bad things happened sometimes.  
  
Summer felt her pulse racing.  
  
"Oh now that's just stupid!" Seth burst out. "The slate's clean, he's finally free to have a relationship with her but he walks away? What kind of an end.... Ow!" as Summer slapped his leg.  
  
"Cohen, are you deaf and blind?"  
  
"What? What'd I do now?" he asked, rubbing his calf.  
  
"Something's going on! Didn't you see your dad in here just now?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Your mom got a phone call and then your dad came in all serious and asked Ryan to come with him. That's not a good sign." Anxiety pitched her voice up half an octave.  
  
"Summer, calm down. I'm sure there's nothing to worry...."  
  
"We're talking about RYAN here, Seth. How often do phone calls concerning Ryan turn out well?"  
  
"Oh my god, you're right." Seth swung his legs around and sat up straight on the couch, looking worriedly toward the other room from which they could barely hear the murmur of voices.  
  
"Should we...?" he raised his eyebrows and nodded his head toward the arch.  
  
"Eavesdrop? No." Summer shook her head. "Not this time. I think we just have to wait."  
  
At that moment Kirsten entered the room. Her face was drawn and pale and one hand nervously twisted the rings of the other.  
  
"What happened?" Seth asked, rising from the couch. Summer wanted to stand too, she felt suddenly, ridiculously vulnerable down on the floor, but the adrenalin was coursing through her so hard she was afraid her legs would buckle if she tried to stand.  
  
"It's Trey," Kirsten said, her voice low and weak. "He, uh ... He died."  
  
Summer heard someone gasp and realized it was herself. She'd never met Trey, never even seen a picture, but Ryan had told her Chino stories in which his brother played a prominent role often enough that she felt as if she knew him in some fundamental way. She wanted to say something but was too shocked to form words. Seth, however, wasn't so afflicted.  
  
"When? How did it happen? Did he get stabbed or something? Does Ryan's mom know? Does anyone even know where she is? What about his dad?" His voice rose a little more with each question, as he walked toward his mom.  
  
Kirsten held up a hand. "Seth. Quieter, please." She glanced over her shoulder at the other room.  
  
"How's he taking it?" Seth asked in a stage whisper.  
  
She shrugged. "It's hard to.... You know, Ryan. He looks...."  
  
'Like stone.' Summer completed the sentence in her head. She knew very well what Ryan looked like when he shut down.  
  
"Trey died just a few hours ago at the prison infirmary. The diagnosis is that it was a burst cerebral aneurysm but they won't know until they do an autopsy."  
  
"He was only, like, twenty-two or something. How is that possible?" Seth sounded as shocked as Summer felt.  
  
"I don't know," Kirsten said wearily.  
  
"Weren't there signs? I mean, what, did they refuse him treatment too long until it was too late or...?"  
  
"Seth. Stop," she cautioned. "I don't really know all the details and it is not appropriate to start guessing about medical treatment or lack of right now. The important thing is to calm down and be there for Ryan, whatever he needs from us."  
  
"Well..." Seth paused in both walking and talking then continued more slowly, "what about Dawn or Mr. Atwood. God, I don't even know Ryan's father's name."  
  
"Glen," Summer said quietly. "It's Glen." She grabbed the edge of the couch and hauled herself to her feet, legs feeling like deadwood from sitting on the floor so long. Both Seth and Kirsten looked at her as if they had only just noticed her presence in the room.  
  
"Mrs. Cohen, is it all right if I...? Can I see him?" Summer asked, feeling shy and uncertain of her place.  
  
For a second Kirsten looked doubtful then she smiled slightly and nodded. "Of course. Go ahead."  
  
Summer wet her lips, took a breath and began to walk toward the other room as if facing an executioner. She felt totally unequipped to say the right words.  
  
Seth moved to come with her, but Summer noted from the corner of her eye that Kirsten rested a hand on his arm to prevent him. "Maybe one at a time," she suggested carefully.  
  
And oh great, now Summer felt bad for usurping Seth's position as Ryan's best friend and pseudo brother. But she walked on anyway.  
  
She paused in the arch between the rooms and watched the tableau before her. Sandy and Ryan were seated at the corner of the formal dining room table. Ryan's back was to Summer so she couldn't see his face. His arms lay on the table, hands resting on top of one another, his back was hunched slightly and his head bowed a little. Sandy was talking earnestly, his expressive face leaned in close to Ryan's as if his proximity and intensity would catch and hold Ryan's attention. One of his hands was on Ryan's shoulder, not rubbing nor patting but just touching.  
  
He glanced up and nodded at Summer and she took it as permission to approach. She walked over to Ryan and put a tentative hand on his other shoulder.  
  
"Hey," she said, so breathily she was surprised any sound came out.  
  
Ryan turned to look up at her. His eyes were flat and empty like a doll's. It always amazed her how black his eyes could seem when she knew they were as bright blue as an August sky. She sat down in the chair next to him and dropped her hand from his shoulder to her lap.  
  
"Hey," he said belatedly, as though the formation of words required more mental ability than he possessed just then.  
  
Summer searched her mind for what people said in situations like this. She had never been involved with death in any way, not even to attend a grandparent's funeral or to bury a pet in the backyard. She felt stupid and useless and knew that if she opened her mouth only stupid and useless things would come out.  
  
"I-I'm sorry," she stammered.  
  
Ryan nodded. He was still staring at her – or more precisely through her.  
  
She tried to smile but her lips felt numb. She reached over and placed her hand on top of Ryan's where it lay on the table. His felt cool and dry. His eyes slid from her face to their hands and he slowly turned his palm up and entwined his fingers with hers.  
  
"What ... happens next?" he asked Sandy in a quiet, level tone.  
  
"The autopsy will take a few days," Sandy replied, "then Trey will be transported to the mortuary at the funeral home, which I'll call, and then...." He cut himself off. "You don't have to worry about all of this tonight."  
  
Ryan blinked. His hand was clenching and unclenching in Summer's. "What?"  
  
Sandy sighed. "Since we can't locate your mother and your dad hasn't really ... been in the picture for a while, it's up to you to decide whether to ... bury or cremate the body."  
  
And just like that Trey had been reduced from a person to 'the body.' Summer felt sick. She looked at Ryan and thought that if it was possible he had gone even paler. He nodded again.  
  
"I'm so sorry," Sandy said, and for the first time Summer realized how helpless and uncertain adults could feel too, even confident people like Sandy. He shook his head, frowning. "It's an awful thing. I wish there was something I could do to make it better for you but I can't."  
  
"If he's cremated, will I be able to see him first? Before they...," Ryan darted a questioning glance up at Sandy then returned his gaze to his hand and Summer's locked together on the table.  
  
Summer felt sweat forming on the palm of her hand and Ryan's had gone from cool and dry to moist and warm. It was wrapped around hers as tightly as a vice.  
  
"Oh," again Sandy seemed at a loss. "Uh, yes. If you want to I'm sure that could be arranged."  
  
Again Ryan nodded.  
  
Kirsten and Seth had quietly come in. Kirsten had a steaming mug of something, which she carried over and set in front of Ryan before she sat down across from him. Seth hesitated in the doorway with his arms folded, shifting slightly from one foot to the other.  
  
"Hey, man," he said when Ryan finally looked up at him. "I'm so sorry to hear about Trey."  
  
The dead boy's name fell like a stone from his lips and lay there in the ensuing silence, hard and solid and unchangeable.  
  
"Thanks." Ryan's voice was gravelly. He cleared his throat and sat back in his chair, finally releasing Summer's hand and crossing his arms over his chest. She put her hand back in her lap. When she glanced down, she noticed how pink it was compared to the other.  
  
"Ryan," Kirsten said, breaking the silence. "If you want, I can hire someone to look for your mom. The funeral can wait a few extra days."  
  
"Funeral," Ryan repeated the word as if testing how it felt on his tongue.  
  
"Absolutely," Sandy agreed. "There's no rush. You can take your time deciding things."  
  
"Is there a particular church your family attended?" Kirsten asked. "I could contact a minister to ... talk to you."  
  
Ryan shook his head. "No. We never really went to church."  
  
"Well, there'll have a chaplain at the funeral home to conduct a service if you want one." Kirsten seemed to suddenly realize that there was too much information for Ryan to process and she said, "But we don't need to discuss these details now." She paused then added, "Is there anything we can do for you? Any questions you have or something you want to talk about."  
  
He barely shook his head. "Not really. I just...."  
  
"Maybe you'd like some time alone?" Sandy suggested gently.  
  
Ryan nodded once and rose from his chair.  
  
Summer felt more extraneous than ever. She stood up too but then she didn't know whether to hug Ryan or give him space or if there was something more she ought to say so she just stood there feeling dumb.  
  
Ryan looked at her and a ghost of a smile crossed his lips but his eyes remained vacant and dazed.  
  
"Sorry," she said again since no other words came to mind. "Call me if you need anything?"  
  
He nodded then walked toward the door.  
  
As Ryan passed him, Seth grabbed his hand as though to pull him into a hug but only gave him a quick pat on the back, before releasing him. The two boys exchanged a brief look before Ryan left the room.  
  
The Cohens and Summer sat in complete silence listening to his footsteps and the sound of the outside door opening and closing. After he was gone, Sandy heaved an audible sigh.  
  
"Well, that was...." he trailed off.  
  
"Yeah. No kidding," Seth agreed. He finally walked into the room and sat down heavily on one of the dining room chairs. "This sucks."  
  
Summer stood with her hands resting on the back of a chair, wondering if she should go home now or stay.  
  
"So what happens next?" Seth echoed Ryan's earlier words. He looked to his parents to provide answers.  
  
"The prison has ordered an autopsy to confirm the cause of death," Sandy explained. "After Trey's body is released it will go to the mortuary and either be cremated or embalmed for burial. Ryan will have to make some decisions about that and what kind of service, if any, he wants. With his father's input, of course."  
  
"The guy hasn't been there for his family in years, what right does he have to make any decisions now?" Seth asked, frowning.  
  
"Seth, it's a big responsibility and I'm sure Ryan will be glad not to have these hard choices all rest with him," Kirsten said.  
  
"Well then, you and dad should be the ones to guide him through it. You have more right than Mr. or Mrs. Atwood. After all, you'll be the ones paying for everything won't you?" Seth's disgust with the neglectful Atwood parents dripped from every word.  
  
Summer was one hundred percent with Seth but kept her normally opinionated mouth shut.  
  
"Badmouthing Ryan's parents is hardly helpful at this juncture," Sandy lapsed into lawyer-speak. "The best thing you can do, Seth, is to try to keep your thoughts to yourself and be there for Ryan. Give him a chance to talk for a change. Try being a listener."  
  
Seth looked sullen but he dropped it. "I still don't understand exactly how Trey died."  
  
Kirsten took up the story. "Late this afternoon Trey complained of a severe headache to some of the other inmates while they were in the dining hall, and then he fell down, unconscious. The on-site medic was called but it was already too late."  
  
"Too late?" Seth echoed. "He was already dead?"  
  
"Well, no, but...."  
  
"Did they try to airlift him to a hospital?"  
  
"It probably wouldn't have made any difference from what they said. A cerebral aneurysm is caused by a weakness in the wall of the aorta and when it ruptures the brain is flooded with blood. It's very sudden and unexpected and has no prior symptoms to indicate it might happen."  
  
Summer swallowed. She felt her skin prickle as the hairs at the base of her skull rose. The thought of all the weird things that could go wrong inside your body without you even knowing about it scared the crap out of her.  
  
Evidently it knocked the wind out of Seth's sails too because he finally fell silent.  
  
There didn't seem to be anything else to say or do and Summer decided she should leave.  
  
"I guess I'll go home now," she said softly.  
  
The Cohens all gave her sympathetic smiles and said goodbye. Kirsten even walked her to the door and gave her a hug. "I know this is hard for you and Seth, too," she said. "It's not easy to know what to say or how to act when somebody you love loses someone they love." She gave Summer another quick squeeze then let her go. It felt weird but nice to have Kirsten hug her and left Summer feeling all nostalgic for her own mother's rare embrace.  
  
Once outside the front door, Summer hesitated. She couldn't decide whether or not to take that familiar walk around the side of the house to Ryan's room. Part of her thought she should check in with him before she left but another inner voice told her to give him his space. Summer hated feeling uncertain like this. She had never hesitated to barge in anywhere at any time whether she was welcome or not, but tonight she felt like a child on the first day of kindergarten - waiting to be directed where to go and what to do.  
  
Finally she got into her jeep, put the key in the ignition and drove off, thinking about the injustice of all the shit that had rained down on Ryan's life in seventeen years.

* * *

Ryan lay on his bed in the dark staring up at the lights dancing on the ceiling. The house lights reflected off the pool and created wavering ripples of light and shadow and if you stared at them long enough you almost felt like you were floating in water.  
  
He imagined the Cohens and Summer in the house still talking about what had happened to Trey and discussing Ryan and how he was 'holding up.' They were so kind and caring and concerned – sometimes it pissed him off for no good reason.  
  
Ryan could feel the spacious, perfectly air conditioned room around him and the soft bed under him and suddenly he was hit by a hammer blow of extreme homesickness for his own crappy bed in his closet of a bedroom with the TV turned up too loud on the other side of the thin wall and Trey and his mom shouting at each other over the noise. The stink of tuna casserole would permeate the house and if he listened through the immediate din he could hear Turo's car radio in the driveway between the two houses tuned to the bone thumping bass of heavy metal.  
  
For a moment he felt he would even put up with that cocksucker A.J. if he could just go home again; set the clock back and make everything normal.  
  
The burst of emotion passed and Ryan tried to concentrate on the dancing lights again, to calm himself and reach that zen-like floating state. He breathed slowly in and out, listening to the sounds of his new room – the quiet drone of the pool pump and the air conditioner, the natural sounds of crickets and frogs outside, and if he listened hard enough he thought he could hear the gentle roar of the surf hitting the beach far below the bluff on which these mansions were built.  
  
He tried to picture what Trey looked like dead.  
  
Ryan had been to a couple of funerals in his life; his Grandma Atwood when he was eight and there was still mom on one side of him and dad on the other as he gazed curiously at the waxen woman in the shiny wood box.  
  
Then there was Brendan McKee when Ryan was ten. Everybody in their grade went to the funeral home to gawk at their classmate who had been laughing and fighting and shooting hoops on the playground only a few days before. He had been in a car accident, suffered internal injuries and died almost immediately. The corpse didn't look anything like Brendan no matter how many times the grown ups commented on how 'natural' he looked. He reminded Ryan of a store dummy all dressed up in a suit that Brendan wouldn't have been caught dead in. When that ironic thought crossed his mind, he had almost laughed out loud right in the middle of the service.  
  
Freshman year of high school Xavier Avilla got shot during a convenience store hold up. He was trying to get the clerk to sell him a six-pack of Bud when the junky with the gun came in, things got out of control and pretty soon bullets were flying in the tiny store. Xavier's death hit hard. He was someone Ryan actually knew really well – a friend he had just gotten high with during lunch hour on Tuesday. And again, as he walked past the fake looking kid in the casket, Ryan knew there was nothing 'natural' about it at all.  
  
He didn't want to see Trey look like that.  
  
Ryan heard the engine of Summer's jeep turn over and was glad she hadn't stopped in to see him before she went home. He was even happier that Marissa was no longer his girlfriend because she would have been weeping and hanging all over him trying to be supportive. That was something he just couldn't take right now.  
  
A few minutes later he heard a quiet knock on the door.  
  
"I'm awake," he called even though he would rather have faked sleep.  
  
The door opened and Kirsten entered the room. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light then crossed to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. He felt rather than saw her smiling down at him.  
  
"Here. I thought you could use these."  
  
Ryan sat up and took the tablets and glass of water she was offering him.  
  
"They'll help you sleep. I know I had a lot of trouble with that when my mom died."  
  
He took the pills, drank from the glass and handed it back. "Thanks."  
  
She hesitated a long moment then reached out to pull him into a quick, awkward hug, which turned into a hold as Ryan clung to her just a little longer than he expected to. She felt thin and breakable in his arms, like Marissa used to, nothing like the solid curves of his own mother. It made him wonder where Dawn was right now and if Kirsten's P.I. would actually find her. And it made him sick thinking about the kind of money the Cohens had had to spend on things like that because of him.  
  
"Get some sleep," Kirsten whispered after he released her. She ruffled a hand through his hair, making him feel like a shaggy puppy.  
  
She got up from the bed and left the room. Ryan lay back down and stared at the ceiling again until his eyes finally drifted closed.  
  
To be continued.... 


	2. Saturday

"The Air of Finality" – chapter 2  
  
Thank you for all of your kind reviews. I originally intended to follow up The Words with a completely fun farce about a camping trip gone awry and only after that delve into this angst-a-thon about Trey's death. But this plot bunny carjacked my brain and wouldn't let go. I'll return to the camping trip idea another time.  
  
Thanks to storymom for her invaluable aid in explaining the difference in the functions of a Medical Examiner versus Coroner and how the whole process would go.  
  
Also, to clarify and for those who haven't read "Summer Time," my Summer back story, written before we knew anything about her family on the show, has her mother running off with a tennis instructor and never looking back – staying almost completely out of contact with Summer. And I didn't give her the doting father of canon but a self involved, absentee father who spends a lot of time jetting around the world with his new wife.  
  
Warning: This chapter earns its 'R' rating.

* * *

Saturday.  
  
Summer awoke midmorning feeling anxious and depressed and unable to remember why she felt that way. Then she remembered.  
  
It was weird that the death of a person she had never met could affect her so deeply simply because his death hurt someone she loved.  
  
Loved. She rolled the word around for a moment in her brain. It was still a novel enough concept, "I love Ryan. Ryan loves me," that she had to take it out and examine it every now and then. She felt a perverse joy despite the sad circumstance of Trey's death because she finally had someone she cared for enough to share his pain.  
  
After rising, showering and dressing, Summer was at loose ends. Her phone showed no incoming calls and she couldn't decide if calling Ryan right now would be supportive or intrusive so she phoned Seth instead to find out how things were going.  
  
"Hi," she said when he picked up.  
  
"Hey, Summer."  
  
"What's happening?"  
  
"I'm at The Lighthouse covering Ryan's shift. Dad took him to the Coroner's where the Medical Examiner is doing the autopsy. He wanted to see Trey before they started ... you know, cutting into him. God, it's just so.... I can't even imagine what he's feeling right now."  
  
"I know." Summer confided, "I've never even known anyone who died before. It's bizarre."  
  
"My Grandma Nichol died right after we moved to Newport," Seth said. "Actually that's kind of why we moved here, because she was so sick and mom wanted to be with her. I was still pretty young but I remember the funeral. I couldn't feel anything about grandma, couldn't really believe in it, you know? But when mom started crying I totally lost it, too. I'd never seen my mom cry before and it scared the hell out of me."  
  
"Mm," Summer made an affirming noise. She pictured a little mini-Seth all dressed up in a suit and bawling his eyes out.  
  
"Shit, Nikki's giving me the evil eye. I'd better get back to work. I'd tell you to come over to the house later but I'm going to be here for both Ryan's shift and my own so I won't be home 'til, like, midnight. I don't know how long dad and Ryan are going to be at the Coroner's." Seth paused. "You should call him later – even if he doesn't call you."  
  
Usually Summer hated being told what to do but in that moment she was grateful to Seth for understanding her dilemma and giving her some direction. "I will," she promised. "Have a good day at work."  
  
After she hung up, Summer realized that she had absolutely nothing to do today and she knew that just sitting around waiting to hear from Ryan was going to drive her crazy so she decided to do the only useful thing one could do on a day like this – go shopping. She owned several black dresses but they were all strapless or slit up the side or cut to show way too much cleavage for a funeral. She decided to go find the perfect, conservative outfit to wear for the occasion and of course, a new pair of shoes to go with.

* * *

Ryan stared up at the institutional façade of the San Bernardino County Coroner's Office. The building was landscaped with trees, shrubs and flowers like any other public building and you might think it was a library or post office if you didn't read the small sign planted in front next to the flagpole. He and Sandy walked from the bright, sunny California morning into the cool, hushed lobby.  
  
Ryan stood off to the side waiting while Sandy talked to the receptionist and signed the appropriate paperwork that would allow them to view Trey's body. Then they sat down in a pair of hard chairs in the sparely furnished waiting area. By now Ryan's heart was beating too fast and the coffee he had drunk earlier churned in his sour stomach. He would not throw up, he told himself, no matter what. It was simply not an option.  
  
He settled in his seat, prepared to wait a while to be called, but almost immediately a white lab-coated attendant came to usher them back to the morgue. When he stood up, Ryan felt a momentary wave of dizziness and blackness began to creep in at the edge of his vision. He took a deep breath and blinked his eyes then followed the man in the white coat. Sandy walked by his side with a guiding hand at the small of his back.  
  
They walked through a door, down a short hallway then through another door into a room with a wall full of metal doors. Ryan looked at them and wondered how many of the vaults behind them were occupied. Then his attention was caught by the white shrouded figure laying on a gurney in the center of the room. He stopped walking.  
  
His ears began to ring and the blackness began to steal back into his sight but he blinked it away. He would not pass out. Throwing up or passing out – both not options. Ryan could feel Sandy's hand on his back, pressing firm and warm through his T-shirt. He took another slow, deep breath and walked on.  
  
The attendant murmured some kind of stock apology as if the whole thing were somehow his fault, and then he pulled the sheet away to uncover the head, neck, shoulders, chest of the corpse.  
  
People who viewed a dead body and said, "He looks like he's only sleeping," were full of shit, Ryan thought. The dead man's face and limbs were white and bloodless with an almost blue tinge. Even his lips were white and barely marked the thin line of his mouth. His eyelashes and hair looked black and painted on against the canvas of his skin. The dead man was not his brother Trey, who could never lie so still – not even in sleep.  
  
Ryan had thought that seeing the body would finally bring home to him the truth that his brother was gone, but it still didn't feel real. This stiff, pale corpse seemed small and diminished by the lack of that fire which always drove Trey. This was not his loud, aggressive brother.  
  
A jumble of memories flooded him._Trey holds the broken remnants of his remote controlled four-wheeler. "You touch my shit again, I'll break your arm!" he screams, red-faced.  
__   
  
Standing together at the jewelry counter of Kmart looking at the display of gaudy earrings, Trey says, "Mom would love those for her birthday. You distract the lady and I'll get them."Amputee G.I. Joes, decrepit Power Ranger action figures and headless or legless Barbies gathered from all over the neighborhood are lined up against the fence in the vacant lot awaiting execution. Trey steadies the B.B. gun against Ryan's shoulder and shows him how to hold his aim as he squeezes the trigger. "Yeah. Like that. Nice and easy.""Christ, Ryan, don't be such a wuss. Just jump!" Ryan stares down from the scaffolding, which seems a lot higher now than when they were climbing it. He jumps."Here. Quick. Stick it down your pants." Trey shoves a baggy of grass at Ryan as the cop who pulled them over for speeding walks up to the window."You and Theresa doin' it now, man? All right!" He tosses a foil wrapped square at Ryan. "Just don't knock her up."Shaking Ryan's hand off his arm as he stalks angrily out the front door, Trey snaps, "Don't ask questions. This is me and Turo's business. Just stay the fuck out of it."Ryan asks, "Why do you talk back to him? Why don't you just shut the hell up so we can have some peace?" Trey answers, "Because, fuck him! That's why. It's our house. He's just living here."A head shorter than the angry man but still up in his face, Trey bellows, "Touch my brother again and I'll kill you!"  
_Ryan started as Sandy touched his elbow. He looked up to see his guardian's heavy eyebrows knitted in concern. "You all right?"  
  
"Yeah," Ryan answered. His eyes moved from Sandy's worried face back to his brother's dead body like a compass needle returning to north. He wondered how long they had been standing there and glanced down at his watch to find almost ten minutes had passed. "We can go now," he added.  
  
"You're sure?" Sandy asked. "I wasn't trying to hurry you."  
  
"No. It's fine," Ryan assured him. "We should go." He turned his back on Trey and began to walk toward the door. It felt wrong, like he was abandoning him somehow. Like the day he had said goodbye and walked away from him in the visitor's court at the prison.  
  
Ryan's stomach gave another roll. The taste of bile and bitter coffee rose from his belly to his throat. He swallowed it down.  
  
Suddenly Sandy's hand was at his elbow again, steadying him under the pretense of guiding him out the door.  
  
When they were finally back outside in the balmy air and bright sunshine, Ryan put his head back and breathed deeply. His head felt clearer and his stomach began to settle.  
  
Now Sandy's arm was around his shoulders giving him a quick, hard squeeze. "You're gonna make it through this, kid," he affirmed. "I know it's hard."  
  
Ryan nodded. He was grateful Sandy didn't offer the traditional, "It will get better." He didn't think he could stand hearing that right now.  
  
Sandy's arm dropped away from him and they walked toward the car but part of Ryan's mind was back in that room, picturing the attendant recovering the body with a sheet, sliding the tray back into the chamber and closing the door, leaving Trey in pitch blackness.

* * *

Summer was pleased with her purchases. The jacket and skirt set were very vintage, very Jackie Kennedy. They made her want to buy a pillbox hat and a clutch purse too and tease her hair into a bouffant style. Maybe a pair of little white gloves would be appropriate. The shoes she had bought were simple black pumps but with a certain elegant arch to them that really pleased her. It had been a very successful shopping trip and Summer was basking in the afterglow.  
  
She walked into the house, tossed her keys and purse on the hall table, set her bags on the floor and kicked off her shoes with a contented sigh. She padded into the kitchen and got her favorite kiwi-strawberry juice from the fridge and a glass from the cupboard. Then, even though it had been welded to her hand practically all day and there was no way she could have missed any calls, she obsessively checked her cell phone to see if Ryan had called.  
  
He hadn't.  
  
She figured he had to be back home by now, but there were probably a thousand other things he was thinking about and dealing with. She would give him another hour before she called him.  
  
Summer took her glass and wandered out onto the veranda. She sat down on a lounge chair and gazed out at the gorgeous view of the ocean. Sunlight shimmered off the tops of the waves, seagulls swooped across the blue sky, fluffy white clouds seemed frozen in place there was so little air movement and the cell phone on her lap sat silent and beckoning.  
  
Two seconds later she picked it up and dialed.  
  
Ryan's phone rang five times before someone answered it. It was Kirsten and she sounded breathless. "Hello?"  
  
"Kirsten?"  
  
"Oh, hi, Summer. Ryan's on the other phone talking with his dad right now."  
  
"Oh." Summer was taken aback. She had realized from what Sandy said last night that Ryan would be in contact with his father but the casual way Kirsten said it, as if they chatted together all the time, threw her. Summer knew for a fact that Ryan hadn't spoken to his father in several years. So this phone call was not a casual thing. It was a very big deal.  
  
"Will you tell him I called?" she asked.  
  
"Of course." Kirsten's voice was warm and sweet and Summer had a quick flashback to her hug last night and how good it felt to have a mom type person try to comfort you.  
  
"How is he doing?" Summer asked next, her voice lowering confidentially as though talking about a patient in critical condition.  
  
"Overwhelmed about covers it." Kirsten sighed. "It's hard enough to have a family member die but with Ryan's family situation already so fragmented it makes it that much worse."  
  
Summer murmured an agreement.  
  
"How are you?" Kirsten asked. "It's all a little scary, huh?"  
  
"Yeah," she agreed. "I've never even been to a funeral. I bought a dress today. I wish...." she paused, looking for the right words. "I wish there was more I could do to help Ryan. Something I could say that would be the right thing, you know?"  
  
"You don't have to say or do anything, Summer. Just be there. Just be you. That's all you have to do." Kirsten's words were comforting but Summer didn't know if they were true.  
  
"Thanks," she said.  
  
"I'll tell him you called," Kirsten confirmed. "Goodbye, Summer."  
  
"Bye, Mrs. Cohen."  
  
Sitting in her chair watching the sun sink slowly toward the ocean, Summer thought about what Ryan must be feeling right now talking to his father. She knew how she had felt when her mom called out of the blue last spring after being incommunicado for almost two years. She had been stunned, angry, hurt, happy, relieved, nervous and overwhelmingly scared.  
  
It had been easy to hate the woman long distance for walking out like she did, to make up scenarios in which she came to the door begging for help and Summer slammed it in her face, but confronted by her actual voice on the phone ... Summer was reduced to her ten-year-old self, pitifully grateful to hear her mommy's voice.  
  
_"Hi, mom. How have you been? .... Me? I'm good. .... (laugh) Yes, dad's new wife is a trip. .... Yeah, I'm doing well in school. .... No boyfriend right now. What about you? .... Oh, that's great. You must be really happy. .... Sure, I'd love to meet you for lunch. .... Yes, that'd be great. .... Next Saturday is fine. .... Oh yeah. I have to go, too. Lot of homework you know. (laugh) .... See you then. Two o'clock, right. .... Bye, mom."  
_  
It was the single most surrealistic conversation she'd ever had in her life. Her mother's voice was light and cheerful and full of laughter, delighted to be talking to Summer as if they were old friends who'd fallen out of touch and had suddenly discovered each other again. No big deal here. Nothing to indicate that the woman had abandoned daughter and walked away without a backward glance and only one other phone call in two years' time.  
  
Inside Summer had been screaming her rage and anguish but none of that reached her lips. As ready as she usually was to say anything to anybody at any time, she could express none of her feelings to her mom. And the civilized luncheon at Del Tosi's had been more of the same. When her mother had seen her she squealed with delight and scooped Summer into her arms, pressing kisses on both of her cheeks. Her familiar scent, Ambrosia, suffused Summer's senses and brought tears to her eyes. She remembered when her mom used to get dressed to go out and spritzed a little of the expensive perfume on Summer as well.  
  
They sat outdoors at a table in the sun. Her mom slipped the sunglasses from her hair down over her eyes and wore them throughout the meal as they talked about every shallow subject two women could possibly talk about and never mentioned the huge iceberg of anger and recrimination lurking just below the surface of their chatter.  
  
Until after lunch when they were saying goodbye in front of the restaurant. Her mom hugged her and stepped back. Summer saw that her eyes were glistening with tears.  
  
"Sweetheart," she paused and sniffed delicately before continuing, "I just wanted to say how proud I am of how you've grown up." She brushed a stray tear from her cheek with one beautifully manicured fingertip and gave a sharp little laugh. "No thanks to me." She shook her head once at her own folly then looked deeply into Summer's eyes and said, "I'm sorry I put you through so much pain and that I missed watching you grow into the beautiful young woman you've become."  
  
Summer's throat seized up. Part of her wanted to laugh at the Hallmark words that sounded like her mom had memorized them from a made for TV movie but a deeper part desperately wanted to believe that her mother meant every one of them. Caught between cynicism and naiveté she croaked out, "Okay," realized that made no sense at all and said, "Thank you," realized that she was still really angry with her mother and that the woman didn't deserve a thank you and added, "Call me," before turning around and clicking rapidly away down the sidewalk.  
  
Her mother hadn't called again.  
  
Yes, Summer thought, there was nothing weirder than trying to communicate with a long estranged parent, and she figured between seeing his dead brother and talking to his father, Ryan would have been through the emotional ringer by the end of today.  
  
She stood up, took a last deep breath of the ocean breeze, picked up her empty glass and went inside to work on some homework for Monday.  
  
An hour later Ryan finally called.  
  
"Can I come over?" His husky voice raised gooseflesh on her skin. God, how did he do that?  
  
"Sure," she said and before she could add anything else he had hung up.  
  
He must have jumped straight into the Explorer and broken speed limits to get there because he arrived in under ten minutes.  
  
The doorbell rang and Summer opened it to find Ryan on her front step, grim- faced and pale. She stepped back to let him in.  
  
"Bad?" she asked, shutting the door behind him.  
  
"Yeah," he answered.  
  
She opened her arms and he walked into her embrace, clinging to her so tightly she thought he might crack one of her ribs. She ran a soothing hand up and down his back and he buried his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder.  
  
"It sucks," she said, since that seemed to sum up pretty much everything. She continued to hold him for several more minutes, his body warm and solid in her arms. Then he pulled away and began to kiss her.  
  
His mouth moved against hers hard and hungry and open wide. His tongue sought hers and finding it wove sinuously around it. He grasped her head on either side, fingers twisted in her hair and hands cupping her jaw to hold her even closer. It was as if he were trying to taste her very essence with his tongue – or at least her tonsils. Summer was completely breathless when he finally stopped.  
  
"Parents still in Martinique, right?" he asked, also gasping for breath a little. His eyes were heavy lidded and dark with desire. Summer had read the expression 'dark with desire' in just about every romance novel she ever read, but until she met Ryan didn't really know what it looked like.  
  
"Yeah." She ran her hands up under his T-shirt, reveling in the smooth skin stretched over his abs. He grabbed her and kissed her again; more deep, hungry kisses as he moved her backwards toward the living room that was never lived in.  
  
He nibbled her lips while they both sank to their knees in the pristine, cream-colored carpet, and he sucked on her tongue while he laid her on her back. He stopped kissing only long enough to quickly pull his shirt off in one deft move. As always, Summer was infinitely aroused by the sight of his chest and stomach muscles moving. She simply lay there watching the muscles work as he cast the shirt aside and impatiently shed his socks and shoes. Then she reached for the button on his jeans.  
  
He was straddling her prone body now, his eyes avidly watching her hands unfasten the button, unzip the zipper and push down the top of his underwear to release his hard cock. It bobbed slightly, the shaft thick and pulsating with life, the tip already dripping with pre-cum. Summer ran her hand down the smooth length of it and breathed the air of proud ownership, like her dad when he had bought his coveted '65 Corvette. This was hers. All hers. All the time. She wouldn't trade it in for anything.  
  
Ryan shuddered and groaned quietly at her touch then leaned down to kiss her some more and incidentally to reach behind her neck and undo her halter- top. He pulled it down to reveal the round globes of flesh, each topped with a pebble-hard nipple like a pair of ice cream sundaes garnished with cherries. He moved his mouth from lips to breasts and began to lick and suck.  
  
Usually he would spend a long time worshiping at the mammary altar but after a perfunctory suckle at each breast he stopped and moved back to kissing her mouth. His left hand was at work underneath her skirt, pulling down panties and massaging her clit. Summer bucked a little at the contact and moaned her appreciation.  
  
Ryan suddenly pulled back from her mouth and whispered urgently, "I can't wait."  
  
"Okay." Summer's hands were already grabbing his ass inside his jeans so she began to slide the offending article of clothing down over his hips.  
  
Ryan sat up, cursed as he fought to get out of his jeans then almost tore Summer's lace panties in his hurry to get them down her legs. He ignored her skirt simply bunching it up around her waist, positioned his dick at the entrance of her cunt and began to push in.  
  
Summer wasn't quite ready so it was a little dry at first but after he had moved in and out carefully a couple of times she had loosened up and was ready to accept all of him. Ryan began to thrust.  
  
She watched him suspended above her, biceps bulging with the strain of holding up his weight, face contorted and eyes closed, and she thought she had never seen anything more beautiful. His need was raw and desperate and obvious as he plunged into her again and again, actually driving her back across the floor a little with each push. She was glad the carpet was plush and thick or she would have had some major rug burns on her ass.  
  
Then she stopped watching him and closed her eyes too, riding on waves of sensation as she arched up to meet him on each thrust. Usually Ryan was slow, considerate and chockfull of finesse in his lovemaking and never failed to bring her to orgasm, but tonight he was all CaveRyan and that was sexy too. Summer went with it.  
  
He pumped into her maybe twenty more times, driving faster and faster, then suddenly froze and let out a guttural cry as he came. Summer's eyes flickered open again to watch his enraptured face. She smiled with satisfaction.  
  
When he was finished, he collapsed on top of her, weighing her down like a bearskin rug. His head rested on her shoulder and she could feel his panting breath blowing hot across her chest.  
  
He was so sweaty his damp hair clung to his skin. Summer brushed it back with one hand and blew lightly across his forehead to cool him. Her other arm was wrapped around his back and her hand rested on his shoulder. She began to rub it gently.  
  
"Sorry," he muttered, turning his head to kiss her collarbone. "Do you want me to...?"  
  
"No. It's okay." She knew Ryan wasn't happy if she didn't achieve her 'O' but honestly, sometimes she just didn't care. "I'm fine." She kissed his sweaty hair. "Just rest now."  
  
He was still for a long while but she could tell from his light breathing that he hadn't drifted off to sleep. She looked around the room at the beautiful House and Garden décor that her stepmother's decorator had created and she thought, "I will remember this moment, this place, this time." She marked it as special and filed it away in her brain.  
  
Suddenly Ryan spoke his voice vibrating against her skin, tickling her. "He might come, you know ... to the funeral."  
  
Summer took a moment to process and decipher this. "Your dad?" she asked.  
  
She felt him nod.  
  
"Wow," she replied lamely.  
  
"I don't know what to do," he admitted after another long pause.  
  
Summer suppressed the urge to say, 'About what?' and instead kept stroking his shoulder soothingly.  
  
He continued slowly, thoughtfully, "One time Trey and I were wasted and got to talking about death like you do, you know?"  
  
Summer nodded although she didn't know. She had never discussed death or the afterlife either drunk or sober. She didn't like to think about it at all.  
  
"Trey said he definitely wanted to be cremated. He didn't want people gawking at him. And he thought that cemeteries were a waste of space and funerals were only designed to make undertakers rich."  
  
"Mm-hm," Summer murmured encouragingly.  
  
"So I know he would want to be cremated, but if my dad is allowed to come for a funeral ... or if mom somehow...." He trailed off and was silent for a moment, idly petting her breast as if it were a kitten, and then he offered the rest of his thought, "If Trey is cremated, my parents will never get to see him one last time."  
  
Summer's heart twisted at the finality of the words. She felt a jolt of pain in her chest at the uncertainty of his tone. Suddenly she was a heartbeat away from crying and was afraid Ryan could hear her breath hitching in her chest as she tried to steady her breathing.  
  
"That's a hard decision," she agreed when she had finally gathered herself enough to speak. She tried to think of how to counsel him when all she wanted to say was 'screw your father and your mother, neither of them deserves to be any part of this decision.'  
  
"Have you talked to Sandy about it," she finally said.  
  
"Not yet. And that's another problem," Ryan said his voice low and worried. "The Cohens said they would pay for Trey's funeral. A burial with the casket and the plot and everything has to be a lot more expensive than cremation. I feel bad enough having them take care of any of it but I should probably try to keep it as cheap as possible and...."  
  
Summer slapped him on the shoulder – hard. "Stop it! You have got to get over this issue about the Cohens helping you out. They want to do it. They're glad to do it. You're not a burden on them. You don't owe them anything but your love and respect, just like Seth. You are like a son to them. Don't you know that by now?" It felt good to be Summer again, absolutely sure of herself and not afraid of saying the wrong thing. "We've had this conversation too many times and you're really starting to piss me off, Ryan. Don't EVEN let money be a factor in making your decision. Do you understand?"  
  
She thought she felt him smile against her shoulder. "Yes, ma'am," he said contritely.  
  
Summer smiled too. Sometimes you just had to whap people upside the head to get them to see reason, especially thickheaded, overly proud boys like Chino.  
  
"I'm serious though," she added, in case he thought she was teasing.  
  
"Point taken," he replied then sighed. "Okay, so ... even if money's no object, I still don't know whether to go by Trey's wishes or my dad's."  
  
Summer remained silent.  
  
After a moment, Ryan squeezed her breast lightly with the hand that was fondling it. "You still awake?" He raised himself onto an elbow, rolling his body off of hers to lay beside her, looking down at her face. "What? You always have an opinion, Summer."  
  
"It's not my family. I can't say," she answered.  
  
"But you do HAVE an opinion."  
  
She shrugged.  
  
"Come on. Tell me."  
  
She shook her head ... frowned ... rolled her eyes and sighed ... then opened her mouth and said, "It's Trey's funeral isn't it? I think you have to go by what he wanted. Besides, I'm with Trey. I wouldn't want people staring at my dead body either." She shut her mouth tight and hoped she wasn't wrong for putting her two cents in.  
  
Ryan looked thoughtful then nodded.  
  
"That's just what I think though. Again, it's not my family. I don't want to, like, influence you or anything."  
  
"I know. You won't. But thanks for giving me your opinion."  
  
"Oh. Okay." Summer was pleased that he valued it.  
  
She brushed her hand across Ryan's cheek, noting how haggard and pale he was. "You need something to eat," she announced. "Have you had anything today?"  
  
"Um, Kirsten made me a sandwich earlier," he said vaguely.  
  
Which she interpreted to mean that Kirsten had set a sandwich next to him, he took two bites and left the rest. Summer jumped up and held out her hand.  
  
"We're going to the kitchen. I'm making you an omelet. And you're going to eat all of it," she ordered.  
  
Ryan took her hand and let her pull him to his feet. He put on his boxers and handed Summer her halter. She wiped between her legs with her underpants, put her top back on, smoothed down her skirt over her naked ass and led Ryan to the kitchen where she cooked for him while giving him a play by play of her shopping excursion earlier that day.  
  
When she looked up from the frying pan, he was watching her with an actual smile on his face.  
  
"Love you," she reminded him, stirring the onions and green peppers and eggs into a scrambled mess that she still liked to call an omelet.  
  
"I know it," he answered simply.  
  
To be continued.... 


	3. Sunday

"The Air of Finality" – chapter 3  
  
Thank you to those who continue to review each chapter. I feed on the feedback. I hope the intense sex scene in the last chapter wasn't off-putting to anyone. I saw it as a logical conclusion, a life affirming, tension relieving act after Ryan's stress filled day.  
  
This chappie: A lot of Seth/Ryan time. I was armed with a glossary of sailing terms and no other knowledge while writing the catamaran scene. So if you know tons about sailing and I've misused the terms and sound like an idiot – sue me! Note the surfing shout-out to storymom and her fic "But It Was Only an Accident." And if you haven't yet read that story, go read it.

* * *

Sunday.  
  
Ryan woke with a face full of hair and an armful of soft, warm body. He brushed the wispy strands away from his mouth, smoothing them down and then curled his hand around Summer's naked shoulder.  
  
He looked up at the white canopy that sheltered the bed, then around the room at the clutter of beauty products cluttering the dresser, the clothes and shoes littering the floor, the chair crammed full of stuffed animals like a Noah's Ark, and the ruffled curtain framing the sun-filled window telling him it was late morning. He should probably get up and get going.  
  
He should have been home last night by 1:00 a.m. That was the ridiculous curfew imposed by Sandy and Kirsten. They knew and accepted the fact that he and Summer were having sex but they wouldn't allow him to stay overnight at her house. Where was the logic in that?  
  
But last night Sandy had cut him some slack. Ryan was awakened from a sound sleep at about 2:30.  
  
"Hello?" he had said groggily.  
  
"Ryan, are you still at Summer's?" Sandy's voice sounded concerned but also a trifle annoyed.  
  
"Yeah." He had glanced at the clock and immediately begun apologizing, "Sorry. I fell asleep. I'll be right there."  
  
There was a brief pause then Sandy said, "No. It's all right this once. Go back to sleep. We'll see you tomorrow."  
  
"Thanks," Ryan answered gratefully. The last thing he wanted to do was leave the warm nest of blankets and drive back to the cold, empty bed in the pool house.  
  
After he hung up he had glanced over at Summer, surprised that the call hadn't even disturbed her. She was laying on her back, dark hair fanned across her white pillowcase, her breath whistling in and out through slightly parted lips. He put the phone on the nightstand and scooted up next to her, cupping her jaw and tracing his thumb lightly over her full lower lip. She frowned and batted his hand away, rolling over to her side with an unintelligible grunt.  
  
Ryan had grinned and moved to turn off the bedside light and the television, and then he snuggled down under the covers. He wrapped an arm around Summer and pulled her close, eliciting more protesting moans. His face pressed to the back of her neck inhaling her rich, Summer scent, Ryan drifted off to sleep again rocked in the rhythm of her breathing and the slow, steady beat of her heart underneath his hand.  
  
Lying next to her this morning, Ryan thought that he could happily stay and play house with Summer in her daddy's mansion forever but then the dark shadow of Trey's death crept back into his mind. There would be more phone calls and decisions to make today. He might as well get back to the Cohens and start dealing with it. After kissing Summer's soft shoulder, he threw back the covers and climbed out of bed.  
  
He dressed quickly then sat on the edge of the bed watching her sleep and trying to decide whether to wake her up to say goodbye or just leave a note.  
  
"Hey," he whispered, nudging her arm a little. "I've got to go."  
  
Summer's eyes in their smudged black rings of makeup flickered open. "What time is it?"  
  
"A little after 10:30."  
  
She yawned and stretched. The sheet fell away from her breasts, and Ryan was mesmerized by the sight for a second.  
  
"You have to go right now?" she complained through her yawn.  
  
"I should have been home last night," he reminded her. "Sandy called here looking for me."  
  
"No shit? God, they're really, like, real parents aren't they?"  
  
"Yeah. Anyway, I've got to go home but I'll call you later." He leaned over and kissed her lips lightly.  
  
"I'll be at the hospital working this afternoon," she told him then smiled slyly, "but I'll keep my candy striper uniform on afterward if you want."  
  
Ryan grinned and leaned over to give her another kiss, deep and searching despite her morning breath. "I'm counting on it," he murmured, resting his forehead against hers.  
  
As he reluctantly pulled away, she stopped him with a hand on his neck and a somber look in her brown eyes. "But seriously, Ryan," she said earnestly. "Whatever you decide to do about Trey, don't start second guessing yourself and feeling guilty about it. Follow his wishes or your dad's but mostly follow what your heart tells you to do and then don't look back."  
  
She looked embarrassed at her own sincerity. "Now shoot me before I get any more mushy."  
  
"I will," Ryan said. "Uh ... the first part, not the shooting."  
  
"Funny," she said slapping his arm.  
  
They exchanged another smile, another kiss, and then Ryan got up to leave.

* * *

At the Cohens, Seth was awake but still lounging on the living room couch with a bowl of cereal watching Cartoon Network.  
  
"Hey," he called cheerfully when Ryan came into the room, "You've broken the proverbial sound barrier, my friend. You've blazed a trail that others may follow given the opportunity and an actual girlfriend. You've effectively torn down the iron curtain between the land of abstinence and the land of copulation. You've..."  
  
Ryan silenced him with a look as he dropped down on the other end of the couch.  
  
"All right. Point taken. I'd run out of metaphors anyway." Seth sat up straighter, put his bowl aside and leaned in confidentially. "So, how did you do it? How'd you convince my dad to let you spend the whole night? I need to know this, because there's going to come a time, maybe in the not too distant future, when I'll need to, well ... know this."  
  
"It was an accident. I fell asleep," Ryan said, picking up the remote and changing the channel.  
  
"'It was an accident. I fell asleep,'" Seth repeated as if practicing the words. "Got it. I can work that."  
  
Ryan managed to look amused while still maintaining his deadpan expression. "It was just this once. I'm sure he won't let me get away with it again. After all there have to be some perks for having a death in your family."  
  
Seth fell suddenly silent and Ryan darted a quick glance at him. Seth's eyes wore that concerned expression that bordered on pity. Ryan hated that expression.  
  
"Joke," Ryan prompted, wishing he hadn't said it. He had just been trying to fall in with Seth's banter and the inappropriate comment spilled out.  
  
Seth's mouth opened then closed again and Ryan thought he ought to take a picture to prove that there was once a moment when Seth Cohen was at a loss for words.  
  
"Look," Ryan said with a sigh. "Don't get weird on me. It's okay to joke around."  
  
"Yeah but Ryan, you never joke. You're throwing me for a loop here," Seth began to tease again and Ryan instantly felt more comfortable. "So that's the key to unlocking your sense of humor? Death? It's a tad morbid, dude."  
  
"How was work yesterday?" Ryan neatly changed the subject. "And thanks for covering for me by the way."  
  
"No problem," Seth said. "It was long ... but possibly fruitful. Nikki and I were in the trenches together all day and most of the evening. That kind of thing builds a camaraderie that's priceless. She's like ripe fruit in the tree, Ryan, almost ready to fall off into my hand."  
  
"So when are you going to ask her out?" he cut through the bullshit.  
  
"The timing has to be just right," Seth explained. "Too soon and the fruit will still be green and hard."  
  
"Too late and you have a handful of rotten fruit," Ryan said dryly. "Ask her, man."  
  
"I know." Seth sighed then perked up as a thought struck him, "Double date? That way you can take some of the pressure off. You know, bail me out if I start babbling – that kind of thing."  
  
"Sure," Ryan said. He stopped channel surfing, settling on a soccer match.  
  
There were a few beats of silence then Seth said carefully, "So, Ryan, I know you've got stuff to do today, but I thought maybe in a while you'd like to go sailing – take your mind off things."  
  
"Sounds good," Ryan said. "I'd like that." He tossed the remote to Seth. "Where are your parents, anyway? I've got some things I need to ask them."  
  
"They went for a walk on the beach. They should be back soon." Seth set the remote on the couch, leaving the TV on soccer.  
  
They watched the match in companionable silence for several minutes.  
  
"I'm going to grab a shower," Ryan announced after a particularly impressive goal and a commercial break.  
  
Seth nodded. He was staring blankly at the television screen and Ryan wondered why he didn't change the channel. He knew Seth didn't really like soccer.  
  
Ryan stood up to leave but Seth's voice halted him.  
  
"Ryan?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"How was it yesterday? ... You know, at the ... at the morgue." He looked up with those bright, inquisitive eyes. "I don't want to pry or anything, but I'm trying to understand what it's like for you ... what you're going through."  
  
He broke eye contact then, shaking his head and waving a hand, "Never mind. It's none of my business. I shouldn't have brought it up. You go. Take your shower. Have some breakfast or lunch or brunch ... whatever."  
  
"No. It's okay," Ryan said. "I can talk about it." He stood for a moment carefully formulating his answer to an impossible question. "It was ... surreal."  
  
He considered some more. "Even though I saw him, I couldn't really believe it. I've only seen Trey once over this past year and it's easier to believe that he's still just ... somewhere else. In prison. In Chino. Still living his life, you know?" He shrugged. "I don't know. I can't explain it."  
  
Seth nodded solemnly. "I get that." He cleared his throat. "Well, if you ever want to talk about it ... you know."  
  
It was Ryan's turn to nod. "Thanks."

* * *

After a long, hot shower, Ryan came back to the house to rummage in the kitchen for some food. But he could hear Kirsten and Sandy's voices in the dining room so he put his stomach on hold and went to talk to them.  
  
They were sitting at the table each with a cup of coffee and they looked up when Ryan entered.  
  
"Hi," he said, "Sorry about last night. I didn't mean to worry you."  
  
Sandy shrugged it off. "It's all right. Just so it doesn't become a habit."  
  
Ryan nodded. He noticed that Kirsten looked more uncertain about how 'all right' it was, but she said nothing, simply staring down into her cup of coffee with an unreadable expression and a slight blush on her face.  
  
Kirsten's discomfort made Ryan uncomfortable too so he quickly changed the subject. "I was wondering if you've heard back from the investigator? Was he able to find out anything about my mom?"  
  
"Not yet," Kirsten said, looking up at him again. "But he's still following leads. Unfortunately it looks like she left Chino to go to L.A. At least that's what she told some of her ... acquaintances. And finding someone in L.A. isn't so easy."  
  
Ryan digested that with a frown furrowing his brow.  
  
"Look, if he doesn't have a solid lead by the end of today, I want you to end it," he said abruptly and decisively. "I don't want you to put any more money into this investigation."  
  
Kirsten opened her mouth to protest but Ryan fixed her with a steady look and she closed it again without speaking, nodding instead.  
  
"All right," she said quietly after a moment.  
  
"What about my dad?" Ryan asked then, turning his attention to Sandy. "How long will it take the prison to decide whether or not to grant him a furlough?"  
  
"That depends," Sandy explained. "The warden has the power to grant permission but evidently he's on vacation right now and although the deputy warden is empowered with the same authority, he's evidently hesitant to make the decision. He's waffling right now, and your father's court appointed defender isn't exactly aggressive on his client's behalf. I've been trying to apply pressure from this end or to go over this joker's head and find a way to contact the warden himself. Don't worry bout it," Sandy shook his head, "I'll make it happen."  
  
Ryan believed him. Sandy seemed to have the uncanny ability to talk his way into making people do exactly as he wished. It was impressive – and kind of scary.  
  
"Thank you," he said, and then acknowledged Kirsten again, "Both of you."  
  
"Glad to do it," Sandy said in that relaxed way he had which made you feel okay about accepting his charity. "By tomorrow the Medical Examiner should have the autopsy finished and be ready to release Trey's body. I can contact our local funeral director and make arrangements for them to transport him to the mortuary. But I wondered if you've given any more thought about whether you would like to choose burial or cremation."  
  
Ryan thought, 'I'd like to choose neither, please. I'd like to never have to think about it again.' but what he said was, "I'm still deciding ... if that's okay."  
  
"Of course," Sandy said. "Take your time."  
  
Ryan knew that this was the opportune time to bring up his dilemma about Trey's wishes versus his father's but he simply wasn't ready to launch into a discussion of it again.  
  
"I'm going to call some of his friends in Chino," he announced. "Let them know what happened."  
  
Both Kirsten and Sandy made murmurs of assent.  
  
"And then, this afternoon, Seth thought we could go sailing. Would that be all right?"  
  
"That's a great idea," Kirsten said.  
  
"Nothing like the ocean to help clear your head," Sandy agreed. "You should come out surfing with me some time."  
  
"Have you eaten yet today," Kirsten asked, changing the subject. "Sandy and I were about to have lunch, leftover takeout from Del Tosi. Your favorite, lasagna."  
  
Actually Ryan preferred the cannelloni but he simply nodded and said, "That sounds great, save me some. I'd like to get these phone calls out of the way first."

* * *

Back in the pool house again, Ryan dialed Theresa's number from memory. After several rings, her mom answered.  
  
"Hello, Mrs. Martinez. It's Ryan."  
  
"Mi hijo! How are you? It was wonderful to see you at Theresa's wedding. Everybody was so glad you came."  
  
"Yeah. It was, uh, good to be there." God he hated small talk. "Mrs. Martinez, I actually called to get Theresa and Eddie's phone number. I have some news about Trey I need to share with them, and I wondered if you'd tell Arturo too."  
  
"Ah no." Sophia must have had years of receiving bad news to cue her in instantly to Ryan's tone.  
  
"He, uh, died of a brain aneurysm on Friday," Ryan said, realizing that it was the first time he'd actually had to say the words: 'He died.' 'My brother is dead.'  
  
"Dios! I'm so sorry, nino. He was so young!" Ryan figured she was thinking of Turo who was the same age. He didn't know what to say in reply so he said nothing.  
  
"Does your mom know yet?" she asked cautiously.  
  
"Um, we haven't been able to locate her." He added, "But my dad may be able to come to the funeral."  
  
"When is it?" Mrs. Martinez asked. "I would like to come."  
  
"I'm ... not sure." He wasn't going to explain that he didn't even know yet if there would be a traditional funeral with a casket and a body. He was pretty sure Sophia was picturing a full Catholic mass and a church full of flowers. "I'll let you know soon."  
  
Mrs. Martinez said she was visiting Arturo at the prison that afternoon and would tell him the news. She said how sorry she was a few more times in several different ways, made a comment about God's mysterious ways, and then she gave him Theresa and Eddie's phone number and told him goodbye and God bless.  
  
Ryan paused a moment after he hung up to breathe, and steel his nerves before the next phone call.  
  
This time the phone rang six times before it was picked up.  
  
"Yeah?" It was Eddie, sounding distracted and slightly annoyed. Ryan could hear the blare of a TV in the background, the roar of a crowd and the frantic voice of a sports announcer, which explained his reluctance to answer the phone.  
  
"Hey, man, it's me, Ryan."  
  
Ryan! Holy shit! What's up, man?" Eddie's voice focused and lost the irritated edge. "How the hell are you?"  
  
"Okay." Ryan didn't know a casual way to work into what he had to say so he plunged right in. "Actually I called to tell you and Theresa some news. Trey died last Friday."  
  
It sounded so blunt. There ought to be something to add to it, but he didn't know what it was.  
  
"What?!" Eddie sounded shocked. A vivid picture came into Ryan's head of the four of them; Trey driving, Arturo, as always riding shotgun, and Ryan and Eddie in the back seat. Eddie was telling one of his stupid jokes and screwing up the punch line as usual. Turo was half turned around, laughing and reaching back over the seat to cuff Eddie upside the head, telling him to shut the fuck up if he couldn't tell the joke right. Then Trey was telling everybody to shut the fuck up or he'd toss them all the fuck out of his car. They were giving him a headache with their stupid fucking chatter. Ryan remembered listening to the others squabble while looking out the window, watching the neon signs of topless bars, tattoo parlors and fast food restaurants slip past and thinking that Chino actually looked kind of pretty and colorful at night.  
  
"What the hell happened?" Eddie demanded.  
  
"He had an aneurysm. It burst and flooded his brain with blood. He died almost instantly," Ryan recited the details, feeling detached and cold.  
  
"Christ! Man, I am so sorry," Eddie said. "Does Turo know yet?"  
  
"I told Mrs. Martinez. She'll let him know when she sees him today." Ryan continued, "I wondered if you could help me out."  
  
"Sure. Anything, man." He sounded so earnest it gave Ryan's heart a sudden twist.  
  
"I don't really know what's going on with any of his old friends. I don't know their phone numbers and I wondered if you could...."  
  
"Yeah. I can spread the word. No problem. You just let me know where and when the funeral is going to be and Theresa and I'll gather up a posse from Chino to come."  
  
Again Ryan didn't bother to correct the assumption that there would be a traditional funeral. Lapsed or not, almost everybody he knew in his mostly Hispanic neighborhood in Chino had grown up old style Catholic and didn't consider cremation an option. It was starting to look like his decision was made for him. Ryan didn't even own a photograph of Trey to display. How could he have these people come expecting to pay their respects to Trey personally and present them with nothing but an urn?  
  
"Thanks," he said to Eddie. "I'd really appreciate that. I'll let you know as soon as I find out the details."  
  
"I'll call Ricky and Mike but Tito had to get out of town for a while. I don't know where he's at." Eddie paused. "Jesus, I hate to call Sherry. They haven't been together in a long time but shit ... all through high school, man." He laughed, "Except when they were fighting."  
  
Ryan knew exactly what he meant. He pictured Trey and Sherry screaming and cursing at each other then making out on the couch next time you looked. He remembered the time he'd caught them humping on his bed. Trey threw a shoe at his head and told him to get the fuck out of the room. Sherry's tits were the first Ryan had ever seen outside the pages of Playboy. It suddenly occurred to him that Trey would never fuck a woman again and he felt a brief pang of guilt for enjoying Summer so completely last night.  
  
"Thanks a lot for taking care of it," Ryan said again.  
  
"Anything to help, bro. You want me to have Theresa call you when she gets home from work?"  
  
"Sure," Ryan said. "I'll be gone for a while this afternoon, but after that."  
  
"All right." Eddie was silent a moment. "Damn, I'm sorry. Trey could be a real son of a bitch but he was.... He helped me out a time or two, you know? You could always count on him."  
  
"Yeah." Ryan didn't know what else to say. "Look, I gotta go, but thanks again and I'll call you tomorrow as soon as I know what's going on."  
  
"Okay. You take care, man."  
  
Eddie gave him his work number at the garage, and after he hung up, Ryan realized that he wished he were there right now, hanging with Eddie, watching football and talking about old times. Another of those debilitating waves of homesickness swept through him.  
  
He shook it off and went to eat lunch with the Cohens then he would find Seth and see if he was ready to go sailing.

* * *

"Cast off," Seth ordered. "That means untie the rope from the dock," he explained in a pre-school teacher's tone.  
  
"Yeah. Got that," Ryan said with an annoyed squint. "I'm not that much of a land lubber."  
  
"Ryan, don't say land lubber. You sound like a geek."  
  
At the tiller, Seth guided the catamaran away from the harbor and into open waters then he set a course for a nearby island. It was a perfect breezy day and the wind filled the sail. The boat cut cleanly through the slightly choppy water of the bay and it felt like flying. Ryan lifted his face into the rushing breeze, felt it ruffle through his hair and sting his cheeks. He breathed deeply inhaling a lungful of the invigorating, salty air.  
  
On board his boat, Seth seemed suddenly older, more confident and in charge. He moved around setting the trim, guiding the rudder and occasionally giving Ryan a task to accomplish, while he explained why they were doing it and how it should be done. Ryan listened and learned.  
  
After the sheet was adjusted to his satisfaction, Seth sat aft, controlling the tiller and Ryan sat in the bow simply looking out to sea and watching the island they were heading toward loom closer. The shore was rocky without a strip of sand to mark the line between land and water and a tree covered hill rose steeply from the edge of the shore.  
  
Seth navigated around the south side of the island, staying well back from the underwater rocks that made it a hazardous course. He finally reached the spot he'd been looking for and there was a flurry of activity as he ran down the rigging and had Ryan drop anchor then they bobbed in place while they opened the cooler and pulled out refreshments.  
  
Seth sat down with a bag of Combos and Ryan popped the top on a can of Sprite.  
  
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the lap of the waves and the screams of circling gulls and enjoying the hot sun beating down on them.  
  
"Seagulls, Ryan. What a life," Seth sighed, looking up at the white, swooping birds.  
  
"Eating garbage and dead fish and crapping on peoples' cars?" Ryan asked dryly.  
  
Seth made a tsking sound. "No. Flying free, soaring up to the clouds and landing wherever you wish." He added thoughtfully, "I wonder if mom and dad would spring for flying lessons if I asked them. Can you picture us flying?"  
  
"And falling and hitting the ground? No thanks. The boat's close enough to flying for me."  
  
"Ah, that's right. You'll have to have therapy for that vertigo if we're going to take up flying." Seth fished another soda can out of the cooler, pulled the tab and took a long swallow.  
  
"I think that's my new career goal," he announced, gesturing at Ryan with the hand holding the can. "Pilot. Not flying an airliner. A bush pilot. I can transport medical supplies to sick villagers in remote regions of Africa. Carry mail or tourist groups to exotic places."  
  
"Smuggle drugs from Columbia or Mexico," Ryan added helpfully, lifting his can to knock against Seth's in a toast.  
  
"I could work in any part of the world and when I got bored there, move on to somewhere else."  
  
"And you think you'd like that?" Ryan asked. "Seth, you throw a fit if your morning paper is five minutes late."  
  
"What does that mean?"  
  
"It means you like your routine – a lot. I don't think you'd be very happy as a nomad."  
  
"That's right, Mr. Glass Half Empty, shoot holes in my dreams." Seth shrugged. "People change." He paused then asked, "So, what do you want to be someday? Still interested in architecture?"  
  
"Yeah," Ryan admitted, "But it takes a lot of higher education which I can't afford. I'll probably settle for being a construction foreman or something."  
  
"Ryan, never settle," Seth admonished. "Besides you should know by now that my parents are not going to let you go out into the world without a college education. To them, walking around without a degree is like going naked in public. They're fanatics about it. I think my ultimate rebellion would be telling them I'm going to forego college to pursue, like, a career on an oil rig or to live in a commune in Oregon."  
  
Ryan smiled but didn't say anything. He thought about what Seth had said and what Summer had been continually telling him - that the Cohens expected to see him through college. He had assumed when he came to live with them that they would help him out until he turned eighteen or until he graduated high school and his financial dependence on them would end after that. Racking up more debt beyond that was not part of his plan. He would apply for scholarships and financial aid but he would not impose on the Cohens any longer no matter what anyone said, and somehow, someday he would find a way to pay them back for everything they had done for him so far.  
  
Ryan suddenly noticed that an uncharacteristic silence had fallen on Seth. Looking at his friend's pensive expression he knew he was mulling something over.  
  
"What?" Ryan asked.  
  
"Nothing. I was just thinking." Seth shrugged.  
  
"About...?" He was unused to having to draw Seth out.  
  
"No. We're out here to get your mind off things. I don't want to get all introspective and heavy."  
  
"Too late. What do you want to say?" Ryan drained the rest of his Sprite then set the can on his thigh, twisting it this way and that to watch the way the sunlight reflected off the aluminum.  
  
"I know your family never went to church. Mine didn't either," Seth began reluctantly. "I make a lot of noise about Christmukkah but I'm not sure which parts of my parents' faiths I really believe in. But anyway, I was just wondering ... cause with Trey's death and all it kind of makes you think about it ... and at the risk of sounding like a TV evangelist, do you believe in a Higher Power?"  
  
Ryan was quiet for a minute, considering the unexpected question.  
  
"I don't know. I guess so." He actually had thought about this quite a bit but didn't like trying to translate his thoughts into words. "The cosmos is huge. It's logical that there's some kind of organizing force, right? So yeah, I suppose I believe in that."  
  
"But you don't think that force takes a personal interest in individuals?" Seth asked.  
  
Ryan shrugged. "Sure doesn't seem like it."  
  
"Hm." Seth sat back on his heels and munched down another handful of Combos before he continued. "Well, here's what I think. In the history of the world just about every civilization has about the same belief system: a divine entity or entities and an afterlife of some type. Trillions of people can't all be wrong. There has to be something out there."  
  
Ryan nodded in understanding if not perfect agreement.  
  
"I think that whatever you believe in – that's what you get," Seth said. His moment of epiphany dissolved into habitual joking, "So me personally, I'm opting for the halls of Valhalla and a warrior's welcome into the next life. Feasting and hearty grog and plenty of beautiful servant girls, whaddya think?"  
  
"Uh, I don't know much about Norse mythology but don't you actually have to BE a warrior to enter Valhalla?" Ryan said with a smile.  
  
"I'm a warrior of LIFE, Ryan. Fighting against all odds to secure my place in the world. Facing violent water polo players and scornful maidens every single day on that battleground we call high school. It's the ultimate act of bravery and will definitely earn me a place among the gods."  
  
Ryan stretched and yawned, tossing his empty soda can back in the cooler. "Servant girls, eh? Sounds good, man. Can I join you?"  
  
"I'm counting on it," Seth replied.  
  
They sat contentedly in the sun for another half hour, bantering back and forth about inconsequential things before weighing anchor and heading back out to sea. At the head of the island, Seth tacked and ran downwind for a while. The speed was exhilarating and Ryan was sure a twin-engine plane had nothing on this. He was falling in love with sailing.  
  
He suddenly thought about Trey, wondered if his brother had ever had a chance to sail, doubted that he had and felt another stab of guilt for enjoying something that Trey would never be able to experience. He knew it was stupid, knew it wasn't his fault, but still the guilt remained.  
  
Ryan looked back at Seth, piloting the boat from his seat in the stern. His dark, curly hair was whipped wild by the wind and he stared off into the distance with an intense expression in his eyes. Ryan wondered what he was thinking about; with Seth it could be something as inane as an inner debate over whether Kirk or Picard made a better captain or as profound as puzzling out a plan to end world hunger. The boy's brain never seemed to stop clicking away at top speed.  
  
That's what kept things interesting with Seth. If you asked him what he was thinking, you never knew what he was going to say. And in that moment Ryan was profoundly glad that he was here, sailing with Seth and not crashed out on Eddie's couch shooting the shit about the old days, which weren't nearly as fun to live through as they glorified them to be.  
  
Ryan turned fore, closed his eyes and lifted his face up into the rushing wind.  
  
To be continued....


	4. Monday

"The Air of Finality" – chapter 4  
  
Thank you to all reviewers of chapter 3, your comments and critiques mean a lot to me. And thanks to storymom for giving the once over to this chapter prior to posting.  
  
Note the shoutout to AKA's "Bacon" story. I love that little gem. Thanks to elzed for pointing out that Nana Cohen wouldn't have served bacon. Oops! I kept it in anyway 'cause it's funny.

* * *

Monday.  
  
Sandy could tell that Ryan was getting more upset by the second as the funeral director, Mr. Linderman, quoted exorbitant prices on even the most basic caskets and added in the cost of transporting the body, embalming and various other fees. He didn't even want to see how Ryan was going to react when they began to discuss the cost of cemetery plots. Coming from a lower income bracket himself, Sandy totally understood how these figures would seem astronomical to a boy like Ryan, but having lived the Newport lifestyle with Kirsten all these years, Sandy had also become desensitized to what things cost.  
  
He remembered how much it used to bother him when they were first together and she showered her riches upon him. Sandy was a struggling scholarship student barely able to make rent and still have enough to keep his car running and a little food in his fridge. Kirsten was a wealthy socialite, who liked to play at being bohemian but really had no clue what it was to go without. They were such a cliche star-crossed couple it had actually amused Sandy when he wasn't pissed off by it. Learning to accept Kirsten's generosity had been damn near insurmountable for him at the beginning and had caused endless arguments and battles.  
  
He remembered a particular evening when Kirsten pointed out to him how double standard his views were. "If our situations were reversed," she had said, "if you were the one with money and I was struggling financially wouldn't you want to help me out? And wouldn't you think I was being pig- headed and proud if I refused to let you pay for dinner when we went out on dates? I have money. So what? You're going to punish me for this?"  
  
"You have your father's money," Sandy had noted sulkily, causing Kirsten to stand up from the table and storm out of the restaurant. Neither of them ordered nor ate that evening, but, man, did they have scorching make up sex a few days later.  
  
Sandy was suddenly aware that he was grinning at the memory, and he quickly wiped the smile off his face and went back to nodding gravely as Mr. Linderman droned on.  
  
"I'll take the least expensive one," Ryan interrupted. "The least expensive of everything," he added.  
  
Sandy didn't argue or try to convince him otherwise. Yes, he understood how much it burned to be financially dependent on others. There were days when he still chafed at subtle and not so subtle reminders that his life was at least partially subsidized by Caleb Nichol.  
  
By the time they finally left the tastefully somber undertaker's office with a final shake of Mr. Linderman's hand and emerged into yet another bright, cloudless California day, Sandy could tell that Ryan had moved from upset to seriously pissed off. The boy's jaw was clenched so tightly his neck muscles strained as he stalked silently beside Sandy toward the car.  
  
"Want to talk about it," Sandy finally ventured after they had gotten into the vehicle and driven several miles in continued silence.  
  
"Trey wanted to be cremated. He didn't want a viewing," Ryan finally admitted, his voice taut and angry. "I'm only doing it this way because of my dad."  
  
Sandy nodded. He wished Ryan had shared this with him sooner. It explained why he had chosen the option of having the body cremated only after the traditional viewing at the funeral home. He was trying to conform to the conflicting wishes of his father and his brother.  
  
"And what difference does it make? Either way he's just as dead," Ryan burst out bitterly. "I should have saved you a lot of money and let the state take care of it; a pine box and potter's field."  
  
"Kirsten and I are happy to help you by taking care of the funeral expenses," Sandy assured him. "It's not a problem. We don't mind at all."  
  
"I mind," Ryan snapped, turning to stare out the side window, his posture stiff and unapproachable.  
  
Sandy tapped the steering wheel with his thumb and thought a moment before he spoke.  
  
"Ryan, I know you don't want to accept it, no matter how many times or how many ways Kirsten and I tell you that we're glad to pay for this or anything else you need. I understand where you're coming from, believe me." Sandy chose his words carefully, "But I'd like for you to try to understand our point of view. You seem to think you've done nothing but take from us and that you owe some big debt that gets deeper every day. What you don't realize is what you're bringing to the table."  
  
Sandy enumerated, ticking the items off on the fingers of one hand while he drove with the other. He figured keeping it emotion free and logical was the only way to reach Ryan.  
  
"Number one, companionship for Seth. Do you know what it's like to realize that your only son has literally no friends, no peers to hang out with, to know that he's lonely and miserable and there's not a damn thing you can do about it? Your friendship to our son alone counterbalances any debt you think you owe us."  
  
Ryan was staring fixedly at the dashboard now but Sandy was pretty sure he'd gotten his attention.  
  
He continued, "Number two, the helpful things you do around the house. Do you know I haven't had to take out the garbage once since you've gotten here? It may seem like a small thing to you," he lowered his voice confidentially, "but I really hated taking out the garbage."  
  
He caught a small smile tipping the corner of Ryan's mouth.  
  
"Not to mention grocery carrying, pool skimming and the time you fixed the pipe under the kitchen sink and saved us a plumber's bill. You're a useful person to have around."  
  
"Number three, the sports. Now you know I love Seth, but athletics is not his forte. I appreciate having someone to cheer for on the soccer field or to watch a basketball game with. This is something neither Kirsten nor Seth can do for me. I rely on you to fill that gap."  
  
Ryan was tapping his fingers on the armrest and Sandy thought he was probably squirming with embarrassment inside right about now, but that was okay, at least he was listening.  
  
"Number four, the breakfasts. Every once in a while I wake up to the smell of bacon cooking – cooking not burning, mind you – and I think, 'Ah, Ryan's in the kitchen again.' I haven't had Sunday breakfasts like that without going to a restaurant since leaving my mom's house." Sandy nodded. "Love the bacon."  
  
Ryan shot him a sideways look with a skeptically raised eyebrow.  
  
"Number five," Sandy plowed on, "what you've done for Kirsten."  
  
The boy was still again, staring straight ahead out of the windshield, obviously uncertain about what that could possibly be.  
  
"My wife is not the most overtly emotional person. Some might even call her reserved or cool, but underneath...." Sandy laughed and shook his head, "a bundle of nerves and repressed worries and self esteem issues. And then there's Seth and me, hearts on our sleeves, bulldozing our way through life with no finesse whatsoever. It's quite the family dichotomy."  
  
He turned to look at Ryan's profile. "But you, Ryan, balance things out. You're more like Kirsten than you know; quiet, introverted, thoughtful. You don't realize how much it means to her when you ask her questions about her work and are actually interested in the answers. That's something neither Seth nor I are good at. Feigning interest, maybe, but...." Sandy chuckled. "Kirsten has found a kindred spirit in you."  
  
"You might think, 'Well, all those things are intangible, how do they weigh against school tuition or food or a roof over my head?' Believe me," Sandy gave a practiced, pregnant pause as though delivering a summation at court, "these qualities of yours are without price and they far outweigh any financial support that we give you  
  
Sandy resisted the impulse to dart another glance over at Ryan. He kept his eyes forward and gave the boy time to collect himself if he was feeling emotional.  
  
After a moment, Ryan's voice broke the silence. "You're just going to keep talking until I give in and agree with you, aren't you?" he said dryly.  
  
The unexpected teasing made Sandy blink and pause for a second. Who stole intense Ryan and replaced him with a humorous model?  
  
"That's what lawyers do, son," Sandy kidded back.  
  
Ryan laughed. Actually laughed.  
  
"Fine," he said, "I'll try not to mind spending your money." Sandy looked over to see him smiling slyly.  
  
"Well, don't get carried away," Sandy cautioned. "No gold plated sports cars or jetting off to Morocco, okay?"  
  
"I think I can restrain myself."  
  
The easy atmosphere continued for several blocks and then Ryan asked, "About my dad, how does the furlough work exactly?"  
  
Sandy had informed him yesterday evening that Glen Atwood's pass was granted, and when they made the funeral arrangements today Sandy had approved them with the assistant warden by phone.  
  
"The prison will assign a guard to escort your father here tomorrow. He's been given ten hours, which includes sufficient travel time and time for him to come back to the house after the funeral so you can visit with him. He'll be under the guard's supervision at all times."  
  
Ryan nodded.  
  
Sandy wondered how nervous he was about seeing this man he hadn't had contact with for years. If he was nervous, he didn't show it or reveal it in his voice.  
  
"Will he be in his prison uniform?"  
  
It was a detail Sandy hadn't considered. When Glen was admitted to the penitentiary he would have been wearing street clothes and he might be allowed to wear those for the occasion, but it wasn't like a suit would magically appear among his possessions.  
  
"I'll bring one of my suits along and he can wear that," Sandy said with more assurance than he felt. The guard would hardly want to take responsibility for unauthorized changing of clothes. God knows there could be files in the lining of the coat or boxcutters in the hems of the pants. From what Sandy had seen in his extensive career, prison guards did not like to color outside the lines of direct orders and protocol.  
  
But Ryan accepted his word, nodding again.  
  
There was silence again but for the steady drone of the air conditioning and the car engine.  
  
"Thanks again," Ryan said after a few minutes, "for helping me with the funeral arrangements and pushing for my dad to get this furlough."  
  
"Glad to do it," Sandy said warmly. "If there's anything else you want or need me or Kirsten to take care of, just let us know."  
  
Ryan didn't answer and when Sandy glanced at him, he was looking out the side window again, showing only his profile. His eye glistened.

* * *

After Ryan had left a message on Mrs. Martinez' answering machine and called Eddie at work to ask him to spread the information about Trey's funeral on Tuesday, he decided he would go to school to make up the exam he'd missed that morning. He would rather be at school taking a test than sitting around at home thinking too much. And maybe he and Seth and Summer could stop at the coffee shop on the way home from school as if it were any normal afternoon.  
  
Ryan went into the school office to turn in his late note. As the secretary, Mrs. Manning, took it she squeezed his hand and gave him a sympathetic smile.  
  
"Mrs. Cohen called the office earlier this morning, dear, to let us know what was happening. I'm so sorry for your loss." Behind her thick glasses, her concerned eyes were a light, watery blue.  
  
"Oh." Ryan was taken by surprise. Old Mrs. Manning hadn't acknowledged his presence at this school in any way since he'd arrived at Harbor, except the time he was called to the office after rifling through Oliver's records. That had earned him a brief curl of her lip signaling her disdain and disapproval. "Um, thank you," he said uncertainly.  
  
Evidently this was another of those 'perks' for having a death in the family. Nasty old office workers suddenly treated you like a person.  
  
He took his pass and started down the hall to Mr. Farron's room. The fifth period bell rang and the classroom doors burst open to emit a flood of students into the hallways. Ryan was jostled by the milling throng of chattering teens.  
  
"Atwood! What are you doing in today?" Bayles' booming voice stopped Ryan's forward progress.  
  
"Hey," he said, turning to face Carl Bayles, the least annoying of his soccer teammates. The guy was huge, should've been a football player, and he lumbered down the soccer field like a freight train with no skill or speed but a lot of heart. If there was anyone on the team Ryan could stand it would be Bayles.  
  
"I heard about your brother. I'm sorry, man," Carl said, slapping Ryan on the shoulder with one beefy paw.  
  
"Thanks." Ryan thought he was getting the hang of accepting people's condolences. A lowering of the eyes, nod of the head and a quick thank you and you were off the hook.  
  
"When is the funeral?" Bayles asked.  
  
"Tomorrow at 2:00."  
  
"I'll be there," Carl said, his normally open, genial face drawn into an appropriate frown. It was so uncharacteristic, Ryan felt like laughing.  
  
"Thanks, man. I appreciate it." The proper responses fell from his mouth without him even having to search for the words this time. He supposed he'd be doing a lot of thanking and appreciating tomorrow as well.  
  
Ryan walked another couple of yards down the hall before he was intercepted again, this time by Summer's pseudo friends, Amber and Whitney. They bracketed him on either side and cooed over him in stereo.  
  
"Ryan, we heard what happened," Amber began, resting her red tipped talons on his arm.  
  
"It's so awful," Whitney chimed in, taking his elbow and escorting him down the corridor.  
  
"Why are you even here today? You must be devastated," Amber said, clicking along on her high heels at his right.  
  
"When my grandma died, I couldn't stop crying until they gave me a sedative." Whitney's eyes were suddenly wide and shiny with unshed tears.  
  
Amber nodded. "It's true. She was a mess. God, remember freshman year when Brooke Collier died in that car accident?" she asked Whitney, then explained to Ryan. "She was a girl in our class."  
  
Whitney added, "That was so tragic. Her poor mother." She brushed a tear from her cheek. "I had to walk out of the funeral I was crying so hard."  
  
"Someone our age! It was heartbreaking," Amber said, "even if we didn't know her very well."  
  
"I think she was in my pre-algebra class," Whitney added. "She sat in the back by the window."  
  
"Her death really brought our class together," Amber said gravely.  
  
Whitney nodded. "Definitely. They brought grief counselors into school and we all had a sharing session."  
  
"I have to...." Ryan stopped walking and gestured to Mr. Farron's room, "...take a test now."  
  
"If there's anything we can do for you...." Amber said, patting his arm.  
  
"Yes, anything you need," Whitney continued, pressing his elbow.  
  
"We're here for you," Amber concluded, her brow furrowed in concern.  
  
"Good to know," Ryan answered faintly. He disengaged himself from the girls and went into the classroom.  
  
Twenty minutes later he was in the middle of his test, wrapped up in the eternal verities of mathematical equations. Solving problems took all of his concentration and he found the reliability of numbers soothing. He sat in Mr. Farron's office taking the test and when he finished well before the forty minute class period was up, he reviewed all of his answers carefully a second time.  
  
When the bell rang, he went up to Mr. Farron to hand in his work.  
  
"I'm sorry to hear about your loss," the math teacher said as he accepted the paper.  
  
"Thank you," Ryan murmured with the proper head dip.  
  
"You didn't have to come in today, you know," Mr. Farron reiterated what he had said when he gave Ryan the test at the start of class. "You could have made this up any time."  
  
"I wanted to," Ryan said. "I needed to ... get my mind off things."  
  
Mr. Farron bit his bottom lip and nodded thoughtfully. "I know. Sometimes you just need to keep busy." He paused, looking down at Ryan's test in his hand and then added, "I lost my fiance two years ago. Only a month before the wedding actually."  
  
He shrugged and repeated, "Sometimes all you can do is keep moving."  
  
He looked back up at Ryan and their eyes met and held for a beat then Ryan nodded. Mr. Farron got up from the corner of his desk where he was leaning and Ryan turned to leave.  
  
School was over and Ryan wanted to locate Summer and Seth before they took off. He pulled out his cell phone, which he had turned off during his test and flipped it back on. There was one voicemail message. Ryan played it back.  
  
"Hey buddy." It was Luke Ward's familiar voice, sounding a little tinny and distorted on the cell. "Summer called and told me about your brother. I'm sorry. Give me a call, okay? And I'll probably be home to visit my mom next weekend so I'll catch up with you then."  
  
There was a pause then he added, "Makes me think about my own brothers, you know? I love 'em even though they're little shits. I've gotta try and see them more." Another brief pause and Luke said, "Well, you take care. Call me."  
  
Ryan smiled as he deleted the message then punched in Summer's number. He would never have imagined when he first met and fought with Luke that the guy would turn out to be a friend. It was a strange world.  
  
"Hi. What's up?" Summer asked when she picked up.  
  
"I'm here at school. Came in to take a Calc test. Where are you?"  
  
"The south parking lot. Where are you?"  
  
"Front of the building. Pick me up?"  
  
"Yeah. I'm just waiting for Seth. He's trying to talk Mrs. Snyder into giving him an extension on his paper. He should be here in a minute." She hesitated. "How did it go today?"  
  
"It went," Ryan said. "We made all the arrangements. The funeral will be at two tomorrow."  
  
"No cremation then?" Summer asked.  
  
"Yes, but after the viewing." Ryan paused. "My dad's going to be coming and some people from Chino and ... it just didn't seem right not to have Trey ... there, you know?"  
  
"Sure. I understand," she said simply. "That makes sense. ... Oh, here comes Seth. We'll pick you up in a minute."  
  
While Ryan was waiting in front of the school for his ride, two more of his soccer teammates, Chad and Mike came out of the building. They were the male counterparts of Amber and Whitney and Ryan wished he could be still enough to melt into the brick wall like a chameleon. He was tired of condolences and long faces.  
  
"Ryan!" Chad said. "We heard about what happened. How are you doing?"  
  
"Okay." Ryan glanced toward the south side of the building, praying to see Summer's blue jeep coming to rescue him.  
  
"Sucks, man," Mike chimed in. His hands were stuffed in his pockets and he looked away from Ryan as he spoke, obviously nervous.  
  
"If there's anything we can do...." Chad added and Ryan wondered why people felt compelled to say that.  
  
"Thanks." Ryan hoped the single word would dismiss them, release them from their perceived social obligation and send them on their way.  
  
"Can I give you a ride?" Chad offered.  
  
"No. I'm just waiting for Summer," Ryan said.  
  
"Okay. Well ... take care." Chad clapped a hand to Ryan's shoulder like Carl had done earlier then the two boys walked toward Chad's car in the parking lot.  
  
Ryan breathed a sigh of relief. He knew they were only trying to be kind and supportive, but it made him uncomfortable. He hated being the focus of attention.  
  
Just then Summer's jeep, going way too fast, came tearing around the corner of the building. She pulled up in front of him with a screech of brakes. Summer always drove like that. Ryan couldn't imagine how often she must have to have her brake pads changed.  
  
"We don't usually pick up hitchhikers," she announced, sliding her sunglasses down her nose and peering at him over the tops. "But you look harmless enough."  
  
"I don't know. It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for," Seth said from his seat in the back. "The neighbors always say, 'He was such a polite young man. Kept to himself. I never would've guessed.'"  
  
Ryan threw his bag in the back where it hit Seth's leg, and he walked around to the passenger side of the jeep.  
  
"Oh, see! Suppressed violence," Seth clamored, moving the backpack off his leg and setting it next to him. "I don't know if you should let him in, Summer."  
  
Ryan reached for the door handle and Summer let the jeep glide forward a foot. He reached again and she pressed the accelerator a little. She stopped several yards ahead of him and he folded his arms, refusing to trot alongside while she played her little game.  
  
"Come on, Ryan. I won't do it again," she promised sweetly.  
  
He waited a moment then uncrossed his arms and walked toward the vehicle again.  
  
Summer inched the jeep forward.  
  
Seth grinned. "Quit messing around and get in," he ordered. "We've got places to go."  
  
"Funny." Ryan squinted at the pair of them as they both giggled then he suddenly lunged for the car door, wrenched it open and threw himself inside.  
  
"Where to?" Summer asked when she had finally stopped laughing.  
  
"I need coffee," Seth said. "Lots of it. I have to fortify myself to write that boring paper for Snyder tonight."  
  
"I can't believe you got an extension, you little brown-noser," Summer complained, tossing her hair back as she moved the gear shift from park to drive.

* * *

Ryan sat up straight in his seat, pulled the door shut and fastened his seatbelt just in time. The jeep peeled out of the school drive leaving behind twin streaks of black rubber.  
  
It was late evening and Ryan had just decided to give up on studying since his mind wasn't retaining anything useful, when the phone rang. He checked caller ID and didn't recognize the number.  
  
"Hello?" he answered.  
  
"Hi, Ryan. It's Marissa." Her voice sounded the same yet different than he remembered it.  
  
"Marissa! How are you?" Ryan wondered if he sounded different to her too.  
  
"Getting better," she said then cut to the chase. "I heard about your brother and I just wanted to call and tell you how sorry I am."  
  
"Thank you," he responded then tried to think of something else to say. Absolutely nothing came to him.  
  
There was a long pause on Marissa's end too.  
  
It amazed Ryan that they used to be able to spend hours together. He wondered what it was they used to talk about.  
  
"Summer said the funeral is tomorrow. I'm sorry I won't be able to make it, but you'll be in my prayers," she finally said.  
  
Ryan wondered when she had started praying. Maybe it was part of the whole AA deal – you got clean and sober and suddenly got religion too.  
  
"Thank you," he said again.  
  
The awkwardness was getting ridiculous now. He had to think of something to end it.  
  
"So," he cleared his throat, "do you know when you'll be coming home to Newport?"  
  
"Maybe next month," she answered. "There are still some ... issues I need to work though first before I'm ready for that. And I'm not sure that I'll be going to Harbor again. I think I need to make a clean start somewhere else, you know? Maybe at Saint Ursula's." She laughed. "Can you see me in knee socks and plaid?"  
  
Ryan pictured Marissa wearing a skirt and blazer and attending an all girls' school. It might be a good place for her. Structured. Disciplined.  
  
"You can carry it off," he teased gently.  
  
He still couldn't think of anything to say to her, but he wanted to offer something, a scrap of small talk or local news.  
  
"So, did Summer tell you about Seth's latest crush?" he asked. "Nikki, one of the waitresses at The Lighthouse."  
  
"Oh yeah?" Marissa laughed again but it sounded more relaxed, more real this time.  
  
Ryan told about Seth's exploits and extravagant schemes to win Nikki's attention.  
  
When he was done, Marissa said through the smile in her voice. "Well, I hope he gets her. Seth's a sweetie. He deserves someone."  
  
Inevitably Ryan felt that old stab of guilt for having taken Seth's special 'someone' and made her his own. He too would be really happy to have Seth hook up with a girl not only for his friend's sake but to alleviate that last bit of guilt that refused to die.  
  
After another brief pause, Marissa abruptly changed the subject. "Summer said your dad was going to be attending the funeral."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"How do you feel about that?"  
  
She had obviously been in therapy way too long. She was starting to talk the talk.  
  
"Honestly? I've tried not to think about it too much," he replied. "There's enough going on without ... dwelling on that."  
  
"It's got to be kind of a big deal though," she continued. "You haven't seen him since you were, what, ten?"  
  
"Something like that."  
  
When Marissa started prodding, Ryan automatically started pulling back. It was elemental. Something about Marissa made him shut down like a liquor store on Sunday.  
  
Ryan didn't understand why Summer didn't have the same effect on him. Whether she barged in with her 'take no prisoners' approach to exploring his psyche or held back and waited for him to share things with her, Summer always got results. He wasn't blind or stupid. Even he could see how he opened up with her despite himself. Must be love, he decided.  
  
"Thanks for calling," he intercepted Marissa before she could start to poke again. "I've still got some things to take care of tonight, so I have to go now, okay?"  
  
"Of course," she said. "Well ... take care, Ryan. Bye."  
  
"Bye."  
  
He hung up and blew out a long breath. That had to have been one of the most awkward conversations he'd ever had.  
  
He thought about all the people who had expressed their condolences today; Mr. Farron, Mrs. Manning, his soccer teammates, Luke, Marissa and even Amber and Whitney. It had been exhausting to receive their sympathy but heart warming too. He was sure that tomorrow would be more of the same – with the added emotional twist of seeing both his dead brother, made up like a department store mannequin, and his dad.  
  
His dad. That's as far as Ryan wanted to go down that road. He didn't want to think about what it would be like to see him again. He didn't want to dwell on what anger, resentment and blind devotion memories of his father conjured up. If he started removing bricks, he didn't know if he could contain the rush of emotions that might sweep the whole dam away.  
  
Ryan got up, brushed his teeth, undressed, turned out the lights and lay back down to try and sleep. He stared up at his ceiling for almost two hours before finally giving up and reaching for the phone.  
  
He punched in a number and waited for the familiar voice. "Yeah?" Her voice was quiet and a little sleepy.  
  
"Hi, Summer."  
  
"Can't sleep?" she asked, smothering a yawn.  
  
"No."  
  
"I'm watching Pet Rescue. Want to hear about the case?"  
  
"Yeah." He rolled over on his side, one arm under the pillow the other hand cradling the phone to his ear. He closed his eyes and listened.  
  
Summer began to describe the operation in vivid detail while he relaxed, carried on the comforting rise and fall of her voice as if it were ocean waves.  
  
To be continued....

There was a suicide in my daughter's freshman class this past year and although the kids genuinely mourned, there were also those drama queen types that milked it for all they were worth – 'look at me, see my grief!' Amber and Whitney are representative of all those type of girls. Don't they bug the hell out of you?  
  
HAH! Thanks to Joey who caught that I accidentally changed Whitney's name to Tiffany at the end of the story. Goes to show how interchangeable those names are, eh? This is the updated version.


	5. Tuesday

"The Air of Finality" – chapter 5

I was so touched by the reviews of the last chapter. Thank you.

Thanks to storymom, who steered me right concerning Summer's reaction, and Walter for forcing me a step deeper into Ryan's tangled psyche.

We've probably all lost someone or at least been to a funeral and we all know how incredibly weird and surreal and uncomfortable it is. My dad died last winter and maybe this fic is sort of a way to explore what that was like for me, my sisters, people outside the family circle and, of course, my mom, who was married to the man for 56 years.

* * *

Tuesday.

Kirsten watched Ryan roam aimlessly about the kitchen. He looked out the window, filled a glass with water from the tap and drank it, and then wandered across to the center island and picked up a knife Seth had laid down after spreading cream cheese on his bagel that morning. He carried it to the sink to rinse it then he stared out the window again. The ambient light reflected off his eyes making them even bluer than normal.

Kirsten walked over to his side and he turned to face her. She adjusted his tie before looking up to meet his eyes with a smile. She wanted to say something encouraging but anything she could offer would sound trite so she left it at the smile and a pat on his chest after she had straightened the tie.

"Ready to go?" she asked and he nodded. Kirsten took his arm and walked with him to the car.

They arrived at the funeral home quite early and there was nothing to do but wait. Glen Atwood was supposed to arrive at least a half-hour prior to when guests might be expected to come. After a visitation period followed by a very brief service performed by the chaplain on staff, the casket would be sealed and removed from the chapel for cremation. A light buffet would then be served at The Lighthouse, which was closed for the afternoon.

The Cohen family and Ryan were ushered into a side room to wait while Trey's casket was wheeled into the chapel and the flowers ordered from the local florist were arranged around it. Kirsten watched from the doorway as delivery people carried the brightly colored flowers in. She was pleased to see that the arrangement Jimmy and Sandy had sent on behalf of The Lighthouse staff and the one from the Cohen family would not be the only ones to grace the room. She didn't know why this detail was so important to her, Ryan probably wouldn't even notice, but something about having only two lonely bouquets seemed indescribably sad to Kirsten.

Inevitably her mind went back to the day of her mother's funeral. With Caleb's prominence in the community and her mom's leadership in their social circle it wasn't surprising that flowers filled the room and the overflow bouquets had to be placed around the lobby. The intense scent of hundreds of flowers was one of the most vivid impressions Kirsten had of that day. Sometimes even now if she caught an unexpected whiff of someone's freesia perfume she felt her stomach turn.

Kirsten shook her head and turned to walk back into the waiting room, wondering why in the world she was obsessing over flowers.

Ryan, Sandy and Seth were standing clustered near Mr. Linderman, Jr., who was running things today in place of his father. Kirsten thought about what it would be like to be born into an undertaker's family and to know that in all likelihood you would be dealing with death for a living for the rest of your life. She was very glad her dad was in real estate development. If you had to get sucked into your parent's family business, land was certainly preferable to death as a theme.

Linderman was explaining how the afternoon would go and offering words of condolence. Kirsten walked over to join the group, to give the appropriate nods and murmurs of agreement in all the right places. She glanced at Ryan and his eyes already seemed glazed over. It was going to be a long, hard day for someone who hated to be the center of attention, and she wished there was something she could do to alleviate some of the pressure.

Kirsten's attention was caught by a movement in the doorway. It was Summer dressed as Jackie Kennedy complete with a pillbox hat and little white gloves. Kirsten smiled. Trust Summer to dress for the occasion in an attention grabbing way. She was beautiful, as slick and glossy as a magazine cover, but Kirsten noticed that the girl seemed nervous and hesitant to enter the room so she went over to her.

"Hi, Summer." They hugged and exchanged pecks on the cheek and then Kirsten took her by the arm and led her over to the rest of the family.

"And this is...?" Linderman, Jr. asked, as he extended his hand to take Summer's in his firm grip.

"My girlfriend, Summer," Ryan said and Kirsten realized that was the first time she'd ever heard him refer to her that way. A shadow of a smile crossed his lips as he regarded the girl. Their eyes met and held and Summer smiled back.

"Pleased to meet you," Linderman said politely. "Well, I'll leave you alone for a while," he added, addressing the Cohens and Ryan. "I'll be in the other room if there's anything you need, and I'll let you know as soon as Mr. Atwood arrives."

After he left there was a few moments of complete silence, during which they all stood and stared at each other, then Sandy cleared his throat and asked Ryan, "Do you know how many of your friends from Chino will be able to make it today?"

As Ryan answered, Summer tugged on Kirsten's arm and leaned over to hiss in her ear, "The hat's a little over the top isn't it?"

Kirsten smiled again. "Just a tad," she said, spreading her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart to illustrate.

"That's what I thought. Excuse me," Summer left the room, presumably to go to the ladies' room and remove the little hat without destroying her hairstyle.

Ryan's phone rang, interrupting his answer to Sandy, and Kirsten heard him giving directions to someone.

Seth was beginning to fidget with impatience, pacing the room, picking up a bible and leafing through it before putting it down again. Kirsten went over to talk to him.

"God, mom, this is so weird," he whispered to her as she approached. "I hate it! It's so unnatural. Trey probably would have hated it too. I want you to promise me that if I die before you, you'll throw a big wake where everybody gets smashed and has a good time and nobody wears black or formal clothes at all. Maybe a Hawaiian luau theme would be good. Tiki torches and leis."

"I promise," Kirsten said giving him a brief hug. She was surprised when Seth clung to her for a few extra moments. He hadn't voluntarily submitted to a hug since he was about twelve and tended to wiggle away from every gesture of affection she tried to bestow on him. She held him tight as long as he would let her.

Fifteen minutes later, the family was sitting in a circle of chairs, still waiting. Sandy was explaining one of his more interesting cases to Seth, who was actually listening. Summer was kind of listening, too, but also messing with her shoe, which seemed to be bothering her foot. And Ryan was surreptitiously pulling back the cuff of his white shirt to check the time on his watch. Kirsten was just wondering if she should go with him to the chapel so he could spend some alone time with Trey before his father got there, when Ryan's cell phone rang. He took it from the pocket of his jacket and flipped it open.

"Hello? ... Yes." Ryan rose to his feet and walked toward the back of the room to take the call. The diffuse light from the window illuminated his face as he stood carrying on a low, intense conversation. Kirsten felt a growing trepidation as he bent his head slightly, listening, and stillness came over him. She saw his jaw tighten and his eyes narrow as he spoke rapidly to the caller. There was a long pause while he listened again. She couldn't decide if his face was really that pale or if it was simply the light filtered through the shears on the window casting a colorless hue on his skin.

Kirsten glanced at the others in the room. Seth and Sandy were facing the other way and hadn't noticed Ryan's reaction to this phone call. They were deep in conversation. But Summer looked just as concerned as Kirsten felt. A frown creased her forehead and her toe tapped impatiently. She made eye contact with Kirsten then looked back at Ryan.

He said something else into the phone then pulled it away from his ear, staring at it a moment before he flipped it shut. His shoulders rose and fell as he took a long, deep breath. His head bowed a little and his eyes closed.

By this time Kirsten was pretty damn sure she knew what the phone call was about. She wanted to cross the room and take the boy in her arms, but Ryan's natural reserve and her own stopped her from following that inclination. She simply waited to see what he would say.

After a moment, Ryan pulled himself up straight, squaring his shoulders and walking back toward the family group. He saw Kirsten watching him and she tried to offer sympathy with her eyes if not her hugs. He returned her look with a shrug and an ironic grimace of a smile.

Seth and Sandy had just finished their conversation and in the ensuing silence Ryan's words sounded overly loud. "He's not coming."

"Your father?" Sandy asked, rising to his feet in concern. "What happened? Someone messed up the paperwork? I'll take care of it," he finished angrily.

"No." Ryan shook his head. "It's not the furlough." And even though Kirsten had suspected they were coming her heart wrenched at his next words. "He doesn't want to come." Ryan's mouth twisted in derision, "He doesn't feel like he can 'deal' with it."

His jaw clenched in a knot that thrust his chin forward. He emitted a harsh bark of laughter.

"Jesus," Kirsten heard Seth whisper.

"Oh, Ryan." Summer stood up and stepped toward him, reaching out to touch his arm, but he waved her off. "Don't," he snapped roughly.

Her hand dropped to her side.

Ryan looked at Summer and murmured, "I'm sorry," then he quickly walked past Summer and the Cohens and out of the room.

* * *

Ryan halted in the lobby, his heart pounding against his chest as if he'd run a marathon and his pulse throbbing in his temples. His breath tore jaggedly in an out of his lungs as he tried to slow it, to calm himself. What people said about seeing red when you're enraged was true. There seemed to be a ruby haze over his vision and he blinked his eyes to clear them but it didn't help.

The men's room was down a side hall and Ryan headed for it before Sandy could come after him with his face full of pitying concern. Just the thought of all of them, the Cohens and Summer, feeling sorry for him and being outraged on his behalf made him want to throw up. This couldn't be more humiliating. How many times must these people bear witness to how extremely fucked up his family was?

He wrenched open the handle of the restroom door. As it fell shut behind him, he was already pacing the small room, full of fury with no place to release it.

God, he'd been so naive! In all his visualizations, and there had been some despite his attempts to block out pictures of a reunion, he had never imagined this ultimate rejection of both him and Trey. In his daydreams his father, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit or in one of Sandy's loaned suits, would come through a vaguely imagined door and he and Ryan would stand looking at one another.

From this point every fantasy was different. Sometimes Ryan had pictured his dad breaking down in tears and apologizing for every wrong he had ever done his family, every failure that had caused them pain. Ryan would nod and gently smile and graciously forgive him. Sometimes there was even a hug involved. Then Ryan would introduce his chastened father to the Cohens and his beautiful girlfriend, Summer and show him how fine things had turned out for him despite everything.

When he was feeling more realistic, Ryan had pictured the handcuffs, the prison guard vigilant in the background, and the awkward greeting between father and son, both nodding their heads at one another and barely speaking. That was closer to the truth. It was the Atwood way.

But he had never imagined this. Dad, true to form, pulling a no show.

"Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!!" Ryan kicked over the trashcan in the corner of the room then suddenly turned and drove his fist into the wall of the toilet stall a dozen times. The muscles of his shoulder bunched, the fancy suit constricted his arm, as he pulled back and drove his hand hard against the unresisting surface again and again. It hurt like hell. It felt wonderful.

Why did he let this happen? Why did he fall for it over and over? You'd think by seventeen he would have developed some sense. But no, he still trusted, still believed that his father's words carried more weight than a wisp of down.

God, he felt like such an idiot.

He shook out his aching hand then examined the knuckles to find the skin broken and blood oozing from the abrasions. Damn! Walking over to the sink, he turned on the tap to rinse off his hand and when he glanced up into the mirror was ashamed to see his face. His complexion was red and mottled. His eyes were slits, the skin beneath them swollen. There were tear tracks down his cheeks although he didn't think he'd been crying.

Ryan put his hands under the running faucet and watched the pinkish mix of blood and water swirl toward the drain. He rubbed a wet hand over his eyes and heaved a sigh. His breathing was returning to normal now that he'd let off a little steam.

"You son of a bitch," he whispered to his reflection before turning away from the mirror.

Ryan went into one of the stalls and sat down on the toilet seat. He shut the door and locked it then he just sat there and practiced breathing slowly.

Sheltered by the four close walls, Ryan thought that maybe he would stay there for the next several hours. He rubbed the knuckles of his already swelling right hand, and hoped it wouldn't show too much. Maybe he could shake peoples' hands with his left or get by with his well-practiced nod.

He wished he had a cigarette and a fifth of something – anything, and a couple of joints to top it off. Enough substances to totally numb him until this ordeal was over.

Fuck, he was pissed! And disappointed. And hurt. And, surprisingly enough, relieved. It was shameful to admit it even to himself but he had been afraid to see his father again, afraid to actually speak to him and hear what he might say ... or not say. If there was any redeeming aspect to his dad blowing off this funeral, it was that Glen Atwood's act of cowardice had saved Ryan from having to face his own fears.

He thought about the pivotal moment in his life when he had first realized that his dad's string of excuses and broken promises actually formed an endless pattern and that this pattern was not going to be broken – not next time – not the time after that – probably not ever.

He was eight. It was his first year playing baseball. He was finally old enough and big enough to be on a team. The practice season was over and tonight was the very first real game. Ryan was excited, elated even, but nervous too because he knew he wasn't the best player. He was still a little short and slow compared to the others. But the coach had told him he had 'tenacity' and that he should be proud of that. Whatever it meant, it sounded good when Coach said it.

Ryan stood in the dugout, too wired to sit down, and watched the other team warming up. Then he stepped out of the dugout and took another look at the stands to see if his dad was there yet. His mom waved at him, almost spilling her soda, and he smiled and waved back.

Dad was supposed to stop by the playing field after work. There was plenty of time for him to make it before the start of the game ... if he didn't stop by the bar with his buddies first.

Before he knew it the game began and, caught up in excitement, Ryan forgot to look toward the stands for a long time. It wasn't until after he'd caught an amazing flyball to make a third out in the fourth inning and the team was cheering him and the coach was patting him on the back, that Ryan looked for his dad again.

There was his mom, jumping up and yelling her pride, but no dad. Ryan swallowed his disappointment, returned his mom's smile then went back into the dugout to sit down. Right away his mind began manufacturing excuses for his dad, 'He's busy,' 'He was probably doing important things and had to work late,' 'It's just one game – he'll come another time.' But for the first time there was another, older, more pragmatic voice inside telling him to stop believing those lies, to stop expecting a different ending.

And even then, he still allowed himself to be fooled and disappointed on other occasions.

It wasn't until a couple of years later, when he was a little older that he looked outside of himself enough to notice that he wasn't the only one who had been repeatedly betrayed.

Ryan was dressed up, going over his presentation notes one last time and occasionally looking out the front window to see if his dad was home yet. His mom was working an evening shift and couldn't make it to the Science Fair. He understood that. But his dad was supposed to give him a ride. He had absolutely promised to be on time. Ryan's project was one of the six finalists and he had to give a presentation and demonstration of the experiment in front of the panel of judges. He couldn't be late.

"Fuck, Ryan, you moron," Trey said belligerently as he walked into the living room, a bag of chips in one hand and a glass in the other. "When are you going to grow a brain? He's not coming. Go ask Mrs. Campbell for a ride before you're late."

Ryan ignored his brother, flipped his next notecard and snuck another peek out the window.

Trey flung himself down on the couch and flipped on the TV. "Asshole," he grunted, and Ryan didn't know if he meant Ryan or their father.

Another long minute oozed by and he had just decided that Trey was right and he'd better go next door to the Campbells, when his brother spoke again.

"You gotta quit believing in him so much," he said. "In both of them. The sooner you figure it out, the better off you'll be." Ryan looked at Trey, whose eyes didn't leave the television screen and whose voice sounded leaden and emotionless, and he finally understood.

With the self involvement of a child, Ryan had never looked farther than himself and his own relationship with dad and mom, but now he was old enough to see that Trey was a real person too - not just a loud, abusive mouth attached to a fist that could punch hard enough to make your shoulder numb. Trey was somebody who had been hurt and disappointed just like him. But Trey had learned the knack of not letting it reach him. Ryan didn't know if he could ever do that.

Ryan got up to go to the neighbor's house and beg a ride. "You want to come see my project?" he asked his brother after a brief hesitation.

"Shit, no! Are you crazy? I'd rather stick a hot poker up my ass," Trey snorted. "Besides, Dave's coming over pretty soon to hang out."

Ryan headed toward the door without another word, tucking his notes in the pocket of his good pants. He was almost outside when he heard Trey call after him, "Hey. Good luck with your science thing, man. Make us proud."

"Okay," Ryan said, half to himself as he closed the door behind him.

Back in the present in the john of a funeral home, Ryan rubbed his sore hand across his eyes, brushed his hair back and stood up from the toilet stool with a sigh. He pushed open the door and walked over to the sink to splash cold water on his face and dry it with the fancy hand towel folded to the right of the sink.

He looked in the mirror again. He could pass for normal. His face was no longer the mottled red it had been when he first entered the restroom and his eyes were no longer swollen. He practiced turning the corners of his mouth up in a half smile that said, 'Bereaved but brave brother of the deceased.'

He could do this.

He could gather some shred of dignity and face his foster family, his girlfriend, and appear composed and view his brother's corpse and look suitably somber and greet visitors politely and thank them for coming and accept their condolences with a head dip and a half smile and say his final goodbye and watch the casket be closed and turn his back, leaving his brother behind and walk out of the room and go to The Lighthouse and fill a plate with buffet food that he would never touch and stand around making small talk with well meaning people and not break down nor show his rage at the injustice of having a brother dead at twenty-one and a dad too fucked up to even show for the funeral.

He could do it.

Ryan pushed open the door and went back to the waiting room to find the Cohens and Summer standing in a huddled cluster, talking quietly. They all looked up with concern when he entered. He put on the smile he had been practicing.

"Everything okay?" Sandy asked, carefully casual.

"Fine," Ryan confirmed shortly. "I'm ready to go in now."

"Of course," Kirsten said, walking toward him. "Do you want me to come with you or do you want some time alone?"

"No. I don't need that," Ryan said. "You can all come if you want." He caught a glimpse of Summer's slightly freaked out expression. "Or not, if you don't want to. It doesn't matter."

Before he knew it Ryan was flanked by Kirsten on his right and Summer on his left. Kirsten's hand rested at the small of his back like Sandy's had that day at the morgue, gently guiding him forward. Summer had abandoned the white gloves and her hot, moist palm pressed firmly against his. Seth and Sandy followed behind.

As they entered the chapel and walked past the rows of empty chairs toward the casket, Ryan felt Summer's hand gripping his harder and harder. He leaned over and whispered into her soft, scented hair, "Don't be afraid. It's not too bad."

By the time he stood in front of the coffin, looking down at Trey's pale face with the falsely blushed cheeks, Ryan was more concerned with Summer than with how fake and stiff Trey's crossed hands appeared. He glanced down to see her trembling a little, her eyes wide and glassy. She caught his look and tried to compose herself.

After darting a quick glance at Trey, she looked away toward the sunny yellow flowers to the left of the casket.

It made Ryan sad. He wished he could have introduced her to his real brother instead of a scary dead body.

Tears began to trickle down Summer's cheeks and she wiped at them furiously. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be like this," she whispered urgently. Ryan let go of her hand and slipped his arm around her back. She turned her face into his chest and held on tight to his shirtfront, sniffling softly. He was glad. It kept his hands occupied stroking her back and distracted him from the whole shitty situation. He pressed his mouth against the top of Summer's head and cuddled her close against him.

There were few signs of the autopsy beside the oddness of the hair on one side of Trey's head. Mr. Linderman had explained that although part of the head was shaved and the scalp incised in order to do the autopsy, it had been performed quite neatly and the scalp was sewn up again and covered with a patch of wig hair by the mortician. Linderman had proclaimed almost proudly that one wouldn't be able to tell the difference, which wasn't exactly true but close enough.

Another burst of rage seized Ryan; at his father for putting the 'dys' in dysfunction, at the whole bizarre and ridiculously expensive funeral process and at Trey for being dead in the first place.

It suddenly occurred to him that since his dad wasn't going to be here, he could have the casket closed and screw what the people from Chino expected. He had only Trey to please now. Not that he'd notice – Ryan thought with a mental chuckle.

Sandy and Seth came up on his left and Ryan noted their grim expressions. He pictured Trey's friends looking at the corpse with a mixture of revulsion and pity and Ryan knew that his decision was definitely made.

* * *

Seth sat and watched Ryan from across the room, composedly greeting each visitor who came up to him in his place off to the left of the casket. He would politely smile, lean in to listen to whatever the person was saying and give a slight nod. God, talk about your stiff upper lip! Seth knew that if he had suffered a blow like Ryan had today, he'd be blubbering like a baby or spewing acidic hyperbole at anyone within striking distance.

He was continually impressed and awed by the way Ryan maintained his inner center despite the horrible parenting he'd endured. Seth wondered if situations had been reversed, if Seth had been raised by Atwoods and Ryan had grown up in Kirsten and Sandy's care, would their personalities have been reversed too? Would Ryan be irrepressible, outspoken and charmingly witty while Seth was stoic, self-contained and prone to brooding? Somehow Seth doubted it. He was afraid that if he had grown up in that awful household he would have slit his wrists by now.

The callous, self-centered behavior displayed by Glen Atwood in refusing to attend his son's funeral was beyond Seth's comprehension. Yes, he had realized before that Ryan's family life was crappy, he'd witnessed it first hand with Dawn's abandonment, but Seth hadn't known Ryan all that well back then. This latest illustration of parental neglect hit home for Seth in a much more personal way.

He admired Ryan more than ever today. No wonder Summer had passed Seth over for him. Seth would have too!

He watched as Ryan greeted the woman Seth remembered from Teresa and Eddie's wedding as the mother of the bride, Mrs. Martinez. She hugged Ryan then pulled something from her purse and handed it to him. Ryan stared at what she gave him for a long moment and then leaned over to kiss her cheek. She spoke to him a few moments longer before moving on. Ryan took the paper she had given him and walked over to the now closed casket. He leaned the paper up against the side of the coffin and Seth could see even from across the room that it was a snapshot, a picture of Trey and someone else.

"Oh my god, that is so sweet," Summer murmured as she dropped into the unoccupied chair next to Seth. "That must be the famous Arturo," she said. "He sort of looks like Teresa."

"Or not," Seth said, squinting at the picture. It was hard to see details from a distance but it looked like Arturo had a moustache and Teresa definitely didn't. He glanced over to where Mrs. Martinez was seating herself next to Eddie and Teresa.

"I feel like such an idiot for breaking down earlier," Summer confided, leaning toward Seth. "It was so much more intense than I expected, and Ryan's just so damn stoic and brave it wrenches your heart. I could happily murder his father. He makes mine look like Superdad."

Seth had already been achingly grateful today to have the parents he had. He watched Sandy and Kirsten talking to Jimmy Cooper and Aunt Hailey and he smiled. Then he turned his gaze back to Ryan, who was now greeting Big Carl from the soccer team. Carl suddenly drew Ryan into a bear hug and it looked like he might crush a few ribs. Seth grinned at Ryan's somewhat shocked face when Carl stepped back after releasing him. So, it was possible to shake Ryan's cool.

"Do you think he's really okay?" he abruptly asked Summer. "I mean, under the surface?"

"No," she replied. "I don't think he's okay at all, but you know Ryan, he'll hold it all in until he's ready to let it go."

Seth nodded.

"I keep thinking about Marissa," Summer said out of the blue. "I keep remembering summer before last in Mexico. The way she looked when she was unconscious; I thought she was dead at first. And seeing Ryan's brother today ... all I could think of is how I would have felt at Marissa's funeral." She looked sideways at Seth to gauge his reaction. "I know it doesn't seem like she and I are very close any more, but ... she's still the closest thing I have to a sister."

Seth had a quick mental flash of Ryan lying in that box, all still and creepy, and what it would be like to lose the only approximation of a brother Seth had ever had. He totally understood what Summer was saying. He nodded again and reached out his hand to take hers and hold it as they sat side by side listening to the hushed voices that disturbed the quiet room.

* * *

Kirsten snapped her cell phone shut with enough force to break the plastic. She toyed with the idea of throwing it across the room, watching it bounce off the wall and shatter into pieces. She would like to crack her father's selfish head up against that wall as well. She couldn't believe he was blowing off this funeral.

At twenty minutes to 2:00 when Caleb and Julie still hadn't arrived, Kirsten had stepped out into the lobby to call them. Caleb had answered his cell with a hearty, "Kiki!"

"Dad," she replied. "Where are you?"

"I'm still in L.A. My meeting took much longer than expected. There were some complications and...."

"You know what today is, right?" Kirsten said, clenching her jaw to keep her composure.

"Yes, I know. The boy's brother's funeral. I'm sorry. I simply won't be able to make it," he said. "Julie sent the flowers, didn't she?"

Kirsten swallowed and counted to ten. "Dad, this was your chance to show Ryan that you acknowledge him as part of this family, that what matters to him matters to you." He gave no response and she added, "Couldn't you at least have sent Julie to represent you?"

"Now, Kiki, you know that Julie is hardly the boy's biggest fan. I couldn't ask her to do that."

Kirsten was close to screaming in his ear, a long, hard, cleansing, primal howl. Instead she delivered a lame line, "Thanks SO much for your support, dad," and cut off the connection with the punch of a button.

She ran a hand through her hair and took a shaky breath. Looking over her shoulder, through the open door of the chapel, she could see Sandy smiling at something Hailey had said and she thanked god for her husband. He was a caring, nurturing, devoted father and a supportive, adoring if argumentative spouse. The day she had had the temerity to finally cross her father and say, "Screw you! I'm marrying Sandy Cohen," had been the finest day of her life and the best decision she had ever made.

She thought about fathers and sons, fathers and daughters and wondered why relationships had to be so hard. Ward Cleaver and Mike Brady made it look effortless. Why wasn't it that easy in real life?

Kirsten shook her head and smiled ruefully. She slipped the phone into her purse and walked back into the chapel for Trey's funeral service.

To be continued....

* * *

To those who were expecting a scene between Ryan and his father, this no-show was my plan from the beginning, and the disappointment you might feel is intentional as a reflection of that 'robbed' feeling Ryan would be going through.


	6. Wednesday and Beyond

"The Air of Finality" – chapter 6

You know that lost and let down day-after-Christmas feeling? The day after a funeral is even weirder.

Notes:

I think I borrowed Ryan's fantasy day at the beach from other writers' similar vision. Hope no one minds.

Thanks to Joey for pointing me to the article on dialogue tags. "It was invaluable!" she said.

Thanks to storymom and Walter for guiding and advising throughout the course of this story.

Thanks to all reviewers whose feedback encouraged and fed me.

* * *

Wednesday and beyond.

Life goes on.

Ryan lay in bed Wednesday morning and wondered what the difference was between cliches and facts. Cliches _were_ facts that had been repeated so often they were tired and worn and used up but still true. You couldn't argue with the stupid simplicity of a cliche. It simply was what it was.

Part of him wanted to keep lying in bed. He could stay here all day if he wanted to. It was a cinch that Sandy and Kirsten would let him do whatever he wished today since he was still 'in mourning' or whatever. But the truth was he didn't feel mournful. He didn't feel much of anything except a pervasive restlessness and lying around all day was only going to bore the hell out of him. If he got up and went to school there would be Summer and Seth and teachers and work to do and even all the other annoying Newport brats whom he had grown used to seeing every day. School was definitely better than boredom. He threw back the covers.

As he shambled toward the bathroom, he looked at his sore hand and rubbed the thumb of his left over the damaged knuckles. If anyone had noticed it yesterday, they hadn't said anything. For that he was grateful.

Ryan showered and dressed and walked to the house, crossing the patio to stand before the glass doors a moment before entering. He stopped to breathe, to look around at the balmy day, the cloudless blue sky. Something about that wide expanse of blue without a cloud to mar it and a bright buttery ball of sun hung just above the horizon made him feel depressed. He wished it was stormy and gray and that it would rain all day long.

Ryan pushed the door open and entered the kitchen. From the next room he could hear Kirsten and Sandy arguing in low, heated voices. He walked closer to hear what they were saying.

"Sandy, you were a Public Defender for almost twenty years. You must have seen hundreds of families like this."

'Families like this,' Ryan thought. It had a dirty sound.

Kirsten said, "You know the statistics and you've seen the cases. You know nothing you say is going to change the situation. And what is the point of trying to get this man to start some kind of dialogue, some relationship with Ryan now after all this time? Will it really help Ryan?"

Even though he had known they were talking about him his pulse quickened at actual mention of his name.

"I know. I know. I am fully aware that yelling at this guy, and I _would_ end up yelling, is not going to solve anything." He sighed. "But damn it, I want to so bad. ... No. I'd like to do more than yell. I'd like to kick his selfish ass."

Kirsten's voice spoke again gently and Ryan could almost hear the moment when she put her hand on her husband's shoulder, looked into his eyes and gave him that sweet, sad smile that made your heart twist. "Sweetheart, this is Ryan's family situation to solve. His father ... not yours."

The slight emphasis on the word 'his' and the pause before 'not yours,' clued Ryan in to something he hadn't known about Sandy.

Seth erupted into the kitchen from the other door, making Ryan jump. "Hey! How're you doing this morning? Are you planning on gracing the hallowed halls of education today?"

"Yeah, I'm gracing." Ryan quickly opened the cupboard nearest him and peered inside.

"Uh, Ryan, last time I checked, man, the cereal wasn't kept with mom's vast collection of never-been-opened cookbooks."

Ryan shot him a look, closed the door and moved to the cereal cupboard where he picked out some Cap'n Crunch.

"So ... good attendance from Chino yesterday." Seth was working hard to make casual conversation. "Trey's friends. What were their names? Mike and Ricky?"

"Mm," Ryan grunted. He thought it was unlikely Mike and Ricky would have showed yesterday if Eddie and Teresa hadn't ridden their backs about it.

"And that girl, Sherry," Seth continued. "It was nice to see Eddie and Teresa again, too, with the big news about being pregnant. That's awesome."

"Yeah. Married and pregnant by seventeen. That's real awesome, Seth," Ryan said acidly. On the edge of his vision he saw Seth raise his eyebrows in surprise. Ryan knew he should apologize for snapping but instead he opened the box of cereal and grabbed a handful. He leaned his back against the edge of the counter and started eating.

Hearing the boys in the kitchen brought Sandy and Kirsten into the room as well. They looked a little embarrassed and Ryan figured they were wondering if he had overheard them. They both smiled at him and he nodded but kept on mechanically crunching cereal.

"Mrs. Martinez seems very nice," Kirsten said, filling in the conversational void. "It was very sweet of her to bring you that photo of Trey and Arturo. I have a frame that I think would be perfect for it."

Ryan shrugged and looked down at his hand in the box with the smiling captain's face on the front.

"Or we could shop for one. You could pick out something you'd like," Kirsten offered.

"Naw. That's okay." He knew he sounded rude and ungrateful. He could hear it in his voice, but he couldn't seem to straighten up, to shake his foul mood and be civilized.

"You plan on going into school today?" Sandy reiterated Seth's question in simpler terms.

Ryan paused. In that brief moment two very different scenarios of his day flashed through his head.

He could say he needed a day to himself and the Cohens would never question it. Seth would leave for school when Summer came by to pick them up. Kirsten and Sandy would leave for their offices. And for the first time all week Ryan would finally be alone.

The way he felt today, reckless, unsettled and with a slow burn of anger pulsing just beneath the surface, he would get on his bike and start riding. Cut through the air like Seth's sailboat heading into the wind and ride really hard and fast. He would stop at a liquor store, use his fake ID, buy a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of whiskey. He had enough money now he could even afford to get the good stuff, but he'd still probably just buy Jim Beam. Then he would pedal to the beach, lock up the bike and walk down to a secluded spot he had found. No one else seemed to have discovered it. In the past when he had been upset about something and gone there, he had never seen another person.

He would sit on a rock in the shade of the cliff and watch the ocean waves roll in and suck back out, pulling sand with them. He would listen to screaming gulls and watch them stitch their way across the sky in erratic swoops and dives. He would chain smoke the whole pack of Newports, bought for the irony of the name, and the cigarettes would burn his lungs like acid since he hadn't touched tobacco in over a year. And to add further injury to his aching throat, he would swallow the Beam, letting it bathe his esophagus in fire.

He would drink until he passed out then lay in the sand, sheltered by the high cliff wall until he woke again. He would clamber back up the cliff, head aching, get on his bike and ride fast for home because it would be getting late. He would head straight for the pool house and clean up, try to hide the effects of his day at the beach. Although if the Cohens saw him with red-rimmed eyes, they would just assume he had been crying and would never question him. And finally he would sit down to a late dinner with his foster family and work hard to be pleasant and polite and thoughtful and communicative, since those were the qualities they seemed to value.

That was one way he could spend his day.

"Yeah. I'll be going in," he answered Sandy. "I'm fine. Really."

* * *

At school Summer dropped Seth off in front then drove to the parking lot. This was their routine. It gave Summer and Ryan some time alone together before they started their respective days. Since their schedules didn't match at all, it was about the only time they had together until late afternoon. It was a time to cuddle and chat about inconsequential things and to make out – a lot.

This morning when Summer leaned toward him, Ryan kissed her out of habit but his heart wasn't in it. He felt prickly and untouchable and pulled away after one brief kiss. He sat back in his seat and after a moment of looking at him, Summer settled back in hers. She passed him her travel mug of coffee and he took a sip of the French vanilla roast, all the while staring straight ahead out of the windshield.

"Want to talk about it?" she asked.

"No," he answered shortly.

"Because sometimes you feel better if you air all that crap, you know?"

"If I had something to say, I'd say it," Ryan snapped.

"Ookaay." Summer fell silent. She pulled her make up bag out and started checking herself over in her compact mirror.

After another moment, Ryan handed her the mug and she took a sip before setting it in the cup holder.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"No problem," she assured him calmly. "You have every right to be in a grumpy mood."

"But I don't have any right to take it out on you."

"Ryan, how often am I a bitch? Eighty six point three percent of the time, right? How often do you put up with me? All of the time! I think I owe you." She stopped with her lipstick poised on the edge of her mouth and shot a mischievous glance over at him.

Ryan had to smile.

Summer applied the lipstick, put away the tube, snapped her purse shut and got out of the jeep. Ryan followed, hoisting both his bag and hers.

They made the long trek from the parking lot to the building where Ryan passed Summer her backpack and gave her a goodbye hug and kiss. She leaned into it, wrapping her hands around the back of his neck and laying a big smooch on him.

When she pulled away she said, "By the way, Amber and I are going to Fortuna's for a leg wax after school today, so I can drop you and Seth off at home but then I gotta jet. I can come over later in the evening if you want though ... unless you're still being a little bitch." She grinned and gave him another quick kiss to take any sting out of the words. "See ya later."

"See you." Ryan watched her walk away with a flippant wave and a twitch of her hips. Summer always walked with a little wiggle in her butt, which he used to think was calculated but now realized was completely unconscious.

God, he adored her and the way she teased him and was blunt with him and always made him smile even when he was feeling like shit.

The school day went by quickly. Ryan was left pretty much alone so evidently everyone who felt they owed him sympathetic words had already said something. Either that or his 'don't fuck with me' vibe was keeping people at bay. He walked to his locker and his classes and the lunchroom with a purposeful step, avoiding eye contact with anyone. He listened attentively in classes and took notes but no teachers directed any questions at him. At lunch he nodded briefly at the table of his soccer teammates as he passed but he sat alone. In short, it was very much like his first days at Harbor when he was an unknown, slightly threatening quantity whom everyone avoided.

At home after school Seth asked him to play Mortal Kombat so Ryan obliged. He was ruthless and trounced Seth several games in a row before throwing down the controller in disgust. "Let's go do something. Don't you ever get sick of just sitting around?"

"Uh. Sure. What do you want to do?" Seth asked.

Ryan thought for a second. "Play basketball. There's that court at the park."

"Okay. But, Ryan, I don't really play basketball," Seth warned. "I mean, I can try but don't expect any serious competition."

"You asked what I wanted to do." Ryan was a little belligerent.

"Basketball it is," Seth agreed.

As coordinated as Seth was on his skateboard, that's how un-athletic he was on the basketball court. He raced up and down with enthusiasm but wasn't able to keep the ball away from Ryan. Although he had several inches on Ryan, he wasn't able to guard him or steal the ball from him either. Ryan sunk shot after shot and wished that he were playing against Luke again so he could have a real challenge.

He was playing fast and rough and humiliating Seth, he could tell, yet he couldn't seem to rein himself in. It felt too good to be running until his chest hurt and wheeling and dodging against an opponent, shouldering him aside and making the basket.

Finally Seth held his hands up in the time-out T. Then he leaned over, hands on knees, his back hunched as he gasped for air. For a second or two Ryan watched his friend's scarlet face then he turned and slowly dribbled the ball back down the court. He stood bouncing it repeatedly off the backboard while Seth regained his breath and his composure.

Ryan was embarrassed to face Seth. He knew he'd been mean and aggressive. It was like pitting yourself against a fourth grader and refusing to hold back, unfair and cruel.

"Sorry," he said, as Seth came up beside him and simply watched him dribble the ball in place then clear the net with a swoosh. "I didn't mean to...."

"What? Win?" Seth asked. "Nothing wrong with that."

"Be so rough." Ryan held the ball, turning its pitted orange surface over and over in his hands.

Seth shrugged like it didn't matter.

"I feel...." Ryan tried to explain the confusion inside him, "kind of weird today."

Seth nodded. "It's okay. It'd be weird if you didn't feel weird, you know?"

Ryan was amazed at both Seth and Summer's capacity to put up with his crappy attitude. He didn't deserve friends like them.

"You want to stop at the comic shop on the way home?" he said, offering an olive branch. "It's close by."

"It'll be closed by now." Seth checked his watch. "But we could go for a coney dog at Stan's. I'm starving. I think I'd faint if I tried to make it all the way home without sustenance."

"Sounds good," Ryan agreed.

* * *

Later that evening Ryan sat outside on one of the lounge chairs by the pool and watched the spectacular view of a storm moving in toward shore. Thunderheads were piled in ominous masses above the tossing waves of the dark sea. An occasional glimmer of lightning traced the clouds in gold. He turned his face into the wind and deeply breathed the briny sea air. It was exhilarating.

For the first time all day he allowed himself to think about his family. Trey was dead and Dad and Mom had effectively cut themselves off from Ryan in every conceivable way. He had no family.

Ryan thought about the Cohens. He appreciated everything they had done for him but even after a year of living in their home they weren't his family. He knew they wanted him to think of them that way but he just couldn't. He would always stand a little outside of their family circle. They would never really know him.

He heard someone come out of the house and in a moment Sandy settled in a lounge chair near him.

"Quite a sight." Sandy gestured at the turbulent line of clouds boiling across the horizon.

Ryan nodded.

They sat quietly for a few minutes watching the storm approach, listening to the almost continuous rumble of thunder.

"Why am I here?" Ryan's voice suddenly cut the silence. The words hung there like the simmering clouds.

Sandy paused before answering. "Theologically speaking? Because there are as many different ways to answer that as there are people in the world. God, destiny, karma; it's a complex topic."

Ryan shot him a look over his shoulder, which must have registered even in the dark because Sandy stopped teasing.

"Why am I here, in your house, living with your family?" Ryan clarified.

"I'm not sure how you mean," Sandy hedged. "You're here because ... you needed help and I ... we wanted to help you."

"Why me?" Ryan turned so he was facing him. "I mean, you must have had dozens of cases of kids with problems crossing your desk every day. You could have decided to give extra help to any one of them. Why me?"

"I...."

It was so rare for Sandy to be at a loss for words that Ryan savored the moment.

"I guess, you reminded me of myself. I knew how hard it was to be sixteen and on your own, trying to keep it together. I lived that too."

"Your mom kicked you out?"

"Well, no. I left. But still...."

"Why?"

Sandy sighed. "Long story, but basically I was a very angry kid. Pissed at my dad for leaving the family and pissed at my mom for being more dedicated to her job than to us. Taking off seemed like a good idea at the time. It was stupid."

"Turned out all right for you in the end, didn't it?"

"But it wasn't easy. I made my life a lot harder than it had to be. You, on the other hand, had no options. I wanted to give you one."

"But you must have seen hundreds of kids without parents and sent them on to group homes or someplace. What made my case any different?"

There was another long pause and Ryan appreciated it because it showed that Sandy was truly thinking about the question and not just throwing out some stock, prepackaged answer.

"You," Sandy said emphatically. "You made your case different. There was a ... a connection. I can't explain it."

He leaned forward in his chair regarding Ryan with eyes that glittered in the semi-darkness. "Because you're right, there were hundreds of other instances, other times I could've stepped in and taken a personal hand in changing the course of someone's life. It never even occurred to me before. I would never have dreamed of actually taking one of my clients home, possibly endangering my family and interrupting the flow of our lives."

He regarded Ryan solemnly and reiterated, "It was you."

"But why?" Ryan repeated. "I'm not special."

Sandy shook his head slowly. "You're wrong. There's a quality about you that...."

He broke off then tried again, his voice resonating with feeling. "You are. To Kirsten and Seth and me, you are. You're just going to have to trust me on this."

There wasn't really anything to say to that, so Ryan fell silent and turned back to face the night sky. The smell of rain was getting stronger as the breeze picked up and the storm drew closer to land.

After several minutes he finally said quietly, "Thank you."

* * *

Two and a half weeks passed before Ryan received a call from the prison telling him that his brother's possessions were cleared for release to Ryan. For the first time since the previous Thanksgiving, Ryan took a trip down to Esman Penitentiary. It reminded him of his trip with Marissa almost a year ago now. This time Sandy drove and Ryan gazed out the window at the passing landscape.

As they approached the guardhouse in front of the prison complex, Ryan's heart beat a little faster. There was something so repressive and frightening about entering a prison, as if they might decide on a whim not to let you out again. It saddened him to think of Trey breathing his last in a place like this.

The guard at his station checked Sandy's credentials against information on his clipboard and issued a parking pass before opening the gate. They parked in the visitor's area and walked toward the forbidding building.

Inside they submitted to a physical pat down and electronic scan, before they were permitted to enter a waiting room where Ryan would be presented with Trey's effects.

They waited for a good fifteen minutes in the empty room, seated in metal folding chairs at a long table. Finally the guard opened the door and a prison official in a suit entered carrying a large plastic box. He greeted Sandy and Ryan with a handshake introducing himself as Warden Jack Andrews. He told Ryan how sorry he was for his loss and placed the airtight bin on the table in front of him.

Ryan stared at it. Was he supposed to open it right now or take it home with him? He didn't have to wonder long. Sandy thanked the warden and bid him goodbye with another handshake. The warden left the room by one door and Ryan followed Sandy out the door they had come in, clutching the box against his chest.

Soon they were back outside and walking toward the car. Ryan blinked in bemusement. It had happened so quickly. He looked down. Through the top of the opaque plastic he would see shapes and colors. He had the odd sensation that when he opened the lid he would find Trey inside the box – literally.

When Ryan looked up again, they were by the car, Sandy holding the back door open so he could put the box on the back seat for the ride home. Ryan was strangely reluctant to let go of it, but he placed the box inside the car then watched Sandy shut the door.

During the ride home, he was aware of the box like a physical presence sitting in the seat behind him. He only allowed himself to glance back once to check on it.

Sandy talked to him a little, but Ryan couldn't have said later what about or how he had responded. After awhile even Sandy couldn't keep up a one-sided conversation and the rest of the drive was in silence.

At home Ryan thanked Sandy for driving him.

Sandy said, "No problem," like he always did then gave Ryan one of those fatherly pats on the shoulder.

Ryan carried the box to the pool house where he set it on the foot of his bed then sat down in his armchair and stared at it for a while. When ten minutes had passed, he had to admit the truth, that he was afraid to open it.

Finally he stood up and walked over to the bed, sat down beside the plastic bin and flipped up a corner of the lid. It made a slight popping sound. He pulled off the lid and laid it carefully on the bed before looking inside.

On the left, folded in a neat pile, was the pair of socks, the shirt and jeans Trey had been wearing the night they were arrested. Ryan's heart beat erratically as he flashed back to that night with an immediacy that involved all of his senses.

_Black shape of the car. Trey's darker silhouette against it. "Come on! Get in!" The smooth handle under his fingers. Police cruiser lights flashing. Car flying as Trey floors it. Sirens wailing. "Oh, fuck!" Pulse pounding in his ears. "Please step out of the vehicle now and put your hands on top of your head." Snap. Cold metal around each wrist. Trey's eyes looking at him before they're taken away in separate cars._

Ryan lifted the small pile of clothes out of the box, put his face to the shirt to see if there was a lingering smell of Trey; cigarettes, sweat, anything. There wasn't. He set the clothes aside thinking how the fabric would never take his brother's shape again and wishing that Trey had worn these, his own clothes, in the coffin instead of the brand new suit bought with the Cohens' money.

Ryan reached back into the bin.

The pile on the right contained a couple of wrinkled Playboys, the comic Seth had sent with Ryan last Thanksgiving, a packet of letters and a paperback book called Daily Affirmations. Ryan tried to picture Trey reading the affirmations and couldn't do it. He set the book, magazines and letters down and picked up a jumble of items from the bottom of the box. A plastic Bic lighter, a set of keys with a roach clip fob, a crumpled pack containing three cigarettes, a battered box of playing cards and Trey's wallet. Ryan had bought Trey that cheap, black, fake leather wallet from Kmart for his birthday five years ago. Inside it was a driver's license, a Blockbuster card, several expired credit cards, Trey's old high school ID, a foil wrapped condom, and less than twenty dollars cash.

That was all, the sum total of Trey's possessions at time of death. There had to be more than this pathetic collection but if there was it had gone the way of all of Ryan's things, some mysterious place that only Mom knew about. Probably a dumpster.

Ryan wondered why he had thought the box so heavy while he was carrying it.

He picked up the Daily Affirmations book and thumbed through it.

"Today I will find three positive things about myself. I will identify these good qualities which I possess and then work to emphasize them in my actions throughout the day."

Ryan shook his head and continued to flip through the book. At the back there were blank pages where you were supposed to keep a journal or notes about your progress or something. Ryan found only one sentence on all the empty pages. Scrawled in Trey's nearly illegible script it said, "I will learn to dwell on the positive instead of the negative around me. I will try to have a good attitude even in the midst of shit." It was dated last October and since it was the only entry and the book still looked almost new Ryan figured his brother's attempts at self-improvement had been short lived.

He traced his finger over the blue ink and imagined Trey writing it. The earnest words, so unlike his cynical brother, made his chest ache.

He set the book down on the stack of three magazines and they slid sideways. In between the Legion and the Playboys was a pair of photographs. Ryan picked them up. The backs of the photos were rough and he turned one over to find the paper marred as if it had been stuck to a wall with tape and then carelessly ripped off.

The larger picture was a family photograph taken at Sears when the boys were eight and five and their father was still a solid presence in the picture and their mother still smiled like there was a light inside her. The hairstyles and clothes were dated and the colors of the print had faded but it was the Atwood family in all of their former glory. Ryan felt like ripping it up.

He put the studio portrait down and looked at the snapshot. It was he and Trey, grinning broadly, their arms slung around each other's shoulders. He remembered the day their mom took it.

He studied the picture for a long time then looked at the Daily Affirmations book again and reread the passage his brother had written.

"I will try to have a good attitude even in the midst of shit."

He wondered how well Trey had succeeded at that. Putting the book aside, Ryan picked up the small packet of letters rubber banded together. The band broke when he tried to slip it off the envelopes.

Several letters were from Trey's old girlfriend Sherry. Evidently she had written him even though they'd already been broken up for over a year when he was arrested. There was one letter from Arturo, a Christmas card from Mrs. Martinez, three letters from Mom and nothing from Dad or from Ryan.

He felt like shit as it dawned on him that he was as guilty as his parents of abandoning Trey. He hadn't made an effort. Not once, not a call, a letter, a birthday or Christmas card, not even a damn postcard.

Trey had called him, even if it was because he needed something from him. Trey had sent a Christmas gift, even though it was probably really Mom who did it. Ryan had done nothing but try to pretend his brother didn't exist and that everything from his past could stay in the past.

The knowledge of his failure and of his ability to be just as cold bloodedly cruel as his father, shook Ryan. He looked around at all the items spread out on his bed and wished to god he had taken one moment in the past year to call Trey and ask how he was doing.

That ache in his chest was getting worse and he felt tears prickling his eyes. 'Screw that,' he thought. He angrily brushed them away.

Then his eyes fell on that damn family portrait again; everyone grinning, everyone happy, his dad with that goofy quasi mullet going on, his mom with enough black eyeliner to put Cleopatra to shame, Ryan minus a few front teeth and Trey with his freckled face and cowlick-swirled hair - just an average little boy with his whole life ahead of him. A harsh sob escaped Ryan's mouth and he pressed his hand against it as if the gesture would hold back a second or a third.

His gut twisted in actual, physical pain and for the first time since he was a child, Ryan found himself crying. Not the kind of tears you could blink away and ignore but hard, racking, noisy sobs with big gasps for breath in between. God, he hated crying! He never did it. Ever.

Summer's voice in his head told him crisply, "Then it's long overdue, isn't it?"

Ryan gave in then. It wasn't like he had much choice anyway since his body seemed bent on cleansing itself through his tear ducts. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed, for the unrealized potential of Trey's life, for the broken promise of that happy family in the photo but mostly for his own failure as a brother. He would never have let Seth down that way. Why had he assumed that Trey didn't need him too?

When his tears finally subsided, he viciously rubbed the heels of his hands hard into his eye sockets. He could feel his nose running, sniffed deeply and ran the back of his hand under it. It came away bathed in mucus. Fuck, crying was messy. He got up and went into the bathroom to blow his nose and rinse his red face with cool water.

After that he felt better.

Ryan returned everything on his bed to the box except the two pictures. After looking at the family portrait another moment, he added it to the box and then walked over to his dresser and from the bottom drawer got out the picture of Turo and Trey and the frame Kirsten had given him. He had tossed both into the drawer with no intention of putting the picture in the frame or displaying it. Now he sat down on his bed, slid the back from the frame and inserted the picture in the pre-cut matte. It fit perfectly. He slid the back in place again and turned the picture to look at it once more; Turo and Trey, leaning against a car and acting tough for the camera. They were such a pair of assholes. Ryan smiled.

Putting the framed photo down, he picked up the one of himself and Trey again. He thought he would ask Kirsten if she wanted to help him pick out a frame. She liked to be asked to do that kind of thing. The picture of his whole family he would keep hidden away. It wasn't something he wanted to face every day.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in." Ryan looked up and Seth was framed in the doorway.

"Hey. How's it going?" Seth entered hesitantly instead of with his usual bounding stride. It made Ryan realize how distant he had been these past couple of weeks, pushing Seth away so often that now his friend didn't know where he stood.

"Okay." Ryan gestured to the foot of the bed. "Sit down."

Seth sat and looked at the open box. "Trey's stuff?"

"Yeah. There's something of yours in there." Ryan pulled the bin toward him, picked out Seth's Legion and offered it to him.

"Oh, yeah." Seth flipped the pages of the comic thoughtfully. "I wonder if he liked it."

"Looks pretty well read so I'd say so." Ryan grinned. "There's a couple of other magazines in here if you want them."

He tossed the Playboys at Seth.

"I'll add them to my collection." Seth smiled and stacked the nudie magazines under the graphic novel.

There was a moment of silence. Ryan looked down at the pictures in his lap then back up at Seth. "Look, I know I've been kind of ... out of it these past couple of weeks. I just wanted to apologize. I've been thinking about a lot of stuff." Ryan shrugged.

"Perfectly understandable," Seth said. "Honestly, man, you don't owe me an apology or an explanation or anything. Seriously."

"We're cool then?"

"Definitely cool. No problemo."

"Good." Ryan nodded. He absently picked up the unframed picture of him and Trey and tapped it against his knee.

"Can I see?" Seth asked.

"Sure." Ryan handed over the picture.

Seth studied the two brothers intently. "How old were you when this was taken?"

"Twelve, I think. It was after we moved from Fresno." He smiled, reminiscing. "That was a fun day. My mom's boyfriend, Ray, the one who's in Texas now, took us to Fun Land. We rode the Mangler like ten times in a row cause there was hardly any line and every other ride at least twice.

"My mom wasted probably fifty bucks trying to win the stupid game where you throw a ball through the clown's mouth." Ryan laughed. "She was out of control. And I remember Trey lost his wallet, which he was really pissed about, but other than that it was a perfect day. We actually got along for a change."

"You look like you were having fun." Seth looked up from the picture to Ryan's face. "It must have been nice growing up with a brother."

Ryan shrugged. "Sometimes." He gazed at the picture of Trey and Arturo in its fancy frame. "He had a hell of a punch though. You didn't want to mess with his things."

"Oh yeah?"

"I remember one time when we were little I took his remote controlled four by four out and ran it in the vacant lot. I made a ramp out of an old board propped on a rock and dug a trench on the other side for it to jump over. Ended up wrecking the truck so I tried to hide the evidence."

"What happened?"

"I didn't hide it good enough. Besides Trey already knew it was me who took it because when there's only two of you, who else, right?" He chuckled. "I denied it 'til I was blue in the face of course, but he tore through all my stuff and found it in the back of the closet. I wasn't a very creative hider."

"What'd he do?"

"Smacked the shit out of me. But mom came tearing upstairs cause he was swearing at the top of his lungs and he was the one who got in trouble. Grounded for a week for cussing and for hitting me." Ryan grinned. "I got ice cream."

"Dude, she didn't even yell at you for taking his truck and breaking it?"

"Oh yeah. She yelled too. But I still got ice cream."

"Brat," Seth said.

"I was." Ryan tapped his fingers on the glass surface of the picture of Trey and Turo.

"How about that one?" Seth said pointing at it. "Is there a story about Trey and Arturo?"

"Lots of them. But most of the time I didn't know what the hell those two were up to. I was just hanging out with Teresa by then."

"Hanging out? Is that what they call it in Chino?" Seth teased.

"Hey, she lived right next door. Who else was I going to hang out with? Most of the time I knew Teresa she was just my buddy?" He smiled again. "It was only later on that we added the benefits package."

"Girl next door, eh? Why didn't I have that arrangement with Marissa?" Seth complained.

Ryan laughed.

"Oh, thank you. I'm glad you find the idea amusing." He prompted, "So, tell me another story about Trey or about you and Trey or about anything you want to."

Ryan stopped and thought. "Well, there was this one old lady who lived down the block. She had the meanest dog you ever saw. So Trey thought it would be funny if we put ExLax in some hamburger meat and...."

Seth leaned forward avidly listening while his friend talked.

* * *

Epilogue.

Friday evening.

"Now this is your classic time travel movie," Seth proclaimed as the opening title flashed across the TV screen. "And number two's the best because Marty travels into both the future and the past. It's a lot more complicated than either of the other two. Plus all the cool hovercrafts."

"One's the best." Summer stuffed a handful of popcorn into her mouth and then spoke through it. "Vintage 50's clothes and those great push up bras. I wonder if I could single-handedly bring crinolines and poodle skirts back into fashion?"

"I like the one where they're in the West," Ryan said.

"You shoulda been a cowboy, baybee."

"Don't sing, Seth." Summer poked him in the side to shut him up and he slapped her hand away and put a pillow between them on the couch. "That's your half. This is mine. Don't cross it. Keep your hands in your own area."

Ryan leaned back against Summer's legs and felt her rest a hand on one of his shoulders and knead it lightly. He wondered if she was just doing that to wipe the popcorn grease off her fingers because Seth had forgotten the napkins and she was too lazy to get up and get one. But it felt good so he decided he didn't care.

Doc was telling Marty and the girlfriend, Ryan could never remember her name even two seconds after they said it, about the troubles their children faced in the future, when the phone rang. Ryan looked up as Kirsten passed through the family room on her way to get it. She smiled at him and he returned the smile.

He listened to her voice answering the call and strained to hear what she was saying. He felt tense as a bowstring until he heard her laugh.

Summer ruffled her hand through his hair and he relaxed against her again, even though her knees wedged behind his shoulder blades weren't exactly comfortable. He reached his left hand over and rubbed her bare ankle, toying with the thin gold chain she wore around it. She wiggled a little at his touch and moved her leg up beside him so he could reach farther up her calf.

"As a scientist you'd think Doc would know better than to mess around with peoples' destiny," Seth said. "After all his big talk about not distubing the space time continuum he goes and drags Marty into the future with him? Dumb."

"There's no time travel, Seth," Ryan reminded.

"Watch the movie, Seth," Summer said at the same time.

"You two are no fun."

Ryan stroked his girlfriend's leg and watched the TV and thought about how suddenly things changed. In one second everything you knew could be altered forever. People were snatched out of your life or chose to walk out. You just never knew.

But sometimes things changed for the good and sometimes people came into your life or chose you, so he supposed it all evened out in the end.

The pain of missing those who had left you behind was always there deep inside, humming like a refrigerator motor that you got so used to hearing you tuned it out. He could live with that quiet hum.

"Pass the popcorn back over here, jughead," Summer said.

"Say please, Summer." Seth held the bowl out of reach.

"Nice girls finish last," she replied, poking him in the ribs and grabbing the bowl when he almost dropped it.

Ryan smiled as he listened to them bicker and watched Marty McFly head bravely into the future to change fate.

The End

* * *

Another Note: Thanks again and again and one more time everybody for reading and reviewing. This fic consumed me over the past month. I spent almost every waking moment turning it around in my mind, creating then discarding ideas, thinking constantly about how Ryan would react to things, what he would be feeling at any given moment. It was damn exhausting. Next fic definitely needs to be a comedy.

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